^'J 


n/ 


BX  5937  .H85  T43  1902 
Huntington,  William  Reed, 

1838-1909. 
Theology's  eminent  domain 


Theology's   Eminent   Domain 
And   Other   Papers 


BRIEFS  ON  RELIGION 

BY  WILLIAM  R.  HUNTINGTON,  D.D. 

12mo,  paper,  25  cents,  six  copies  $1.00  ;    clotli, 
50  cents  each,  six  copies  $2.00. 

1.  Psyche  :     A  Study  of  the  Soul. 

2.  Four    Key-'words    of    Religion:      An 

Essay  in  Unsystematic  Divinity. 

3.  The  Spiritual  House :    A  First  Lesson  in 

Architecture. 

4.  Popular  Misconceptions  of  the  Epis- 

copal Church. 

6.   A  Short  History  of  the  Book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer. 

6.   Theology's     Eminent    Domain    and 
Other  Papers. 


THOMAS    WHITTAKER 

Publisher 
2  AND  3  Bible  House,  New  York 


Theology's    x^.,,. 
Eminent    Domain 

AND  OTHER  PAPERS 


BV 

WILLIAM  REED  HUNTINGTON  D.D. 

Rector  of  Grace  Church  New  York 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS   WHITTAKER 

2  AND  3  Bible  House 


Copyright,  1902 
By  THOMAS  WHITTAKER 


Prefatory   Note 


Most  of  the  papers  here  collected  have  been 
already  in  print,  but  in  various  connections. 
For  permission  to  reprint  "  Ecclesia  Media- 
trix," "  The  Style  and  Temper  of  The  Book 
OF  Common  Prayer  "  and  "  How  the  Episco- 
pal Church  is  Organized,"  the  author  is 
indebted  respectively  to  the  courtesy  of  the  fol- 
lowing publishers :  E.  B.  Treat  &  Co.,  Charles 
Scribner's  Sons,  and  Bemrose  &  Sons,  London. 

W.  K.  H. 


Contents 

PAGE 
I. 

Theology's  Eminent  Domain         .         •         .         .         9 

II. 
EccLEsiA  Mediatrix 25 

III. 

Why  Nine  Divinity  Schools  in  Tokyo  ?         .         .       47 

IV. 

A  Cosmic  View  of  the  Atonement        .         .         .61 

V. 

The  Style  and  Temper  of  The  Book  of  Common 

Prayer 79 

VI. 

How  the  Episcopal  Church  is  Organized      .         .       99 

VII. 
On  THE  Firing-Line  of  Christendom     ,         .         •      "S 


I. 

THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  DOMAIN. 


Let  our  first  point  be  a  distinction  between 
science  and  "  the  sciences."  Science  may  be  de- 
fined as  the  knowledge  of  facts  ^lus  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  laws  according  to  which  the  facts 
coexist,  interact  and  follow  one  another.  "  The 
sciences,"  on  the  other  hand,  are  the  several 
groups  into  which,  for  lack  of  the  power  of  uni- 
versal grasp,  man  has  sorted  out  his  knowledge ; 
for  we  know  in  parts  as  well  as  in  part.  Theo- 
logians have  always  claimed  for  their  study,  that 
it  is  scientific  in  its  character ;  but  supposing  the 
claim  conceded,  does  it  necessarily  follow  that 
theology  is  one  of  the  sciences  ?  By  no  means. 
Theology  must  be  scientific  or  it  is  nothing  ;  and 
yet  theology  is  not  a  science.  There  is  no  para- 
dox here.  Theology  is  scientific,  not  because  the- 
ology is  a  science,  but  because  theology  is  science, 
and  nothing  less.  Theology  is,  by  strict  defini- 
tion, the  knowledge  of  the  things  of  God.  But 
if  God  is,  then  there  is  nothing,  whether  in  the 
seen  or  the  unseen  universe,  that  does  not  stand 
related  to  Him.  Hence,  for  the  theologian,  I 
speak  not  now  of  others,  for  the  theologian  him- 

11 


12  THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  DOMAIN. 

self,  theology  ought  to  be  nothing  else  than  the 
science  of  sciences,  the  universal  science  neces- 
sarily including  all  special  forms  of  knowledge 
"  as  the  sea  her  waves." 

The  intelligent  theologian  of  the  present,  in- 
stead of  looking  askance  at  the  natural  sciences, 
so-called,  wondering  what  ugly  thrust  they  next 
meditate,  will  boldly  claim  them  all  as  his  feu- 
datories and  set  himself  to  exacting  service  at 
their  hands.  Astronomy,  Geology,  Physics  and 
the  rest, — what  ought  they  to  be  to  the  right- 
minded  Christian  thinker,  but  only  so  many 
helps  towards  the  better  understanding  of  that 
first  sentence  of  the  Creed,  "  I  believe  in  God  the 
Father  Almighty,  Maker  of  Heaven  and  Earth  "  ? 
Theology  is  not  a  segment  of  the  circle  of  the 
sciences ;  it  is  the  point  above  the  circle  from 
which  the  whole  area  is  swept. 

For  many  years  an  unseemly  conflict  has  been 
waging, — I  will  not  be  so  inexact  as  to  say  be- 
tween science  and  religion,  but  between  certain 
scholars  of  repute— as  to  the  possibility  of  our 
having  any  theology  at  all.  In  this  controversy, 
the  theologians,  as  I  venture  to  suggest,  have 
made  the  double  mistake  of  claiming  for  them- 
selves at  once  too  little  and  too  much.  They 
have  claimed  for  themselves  too  much,  whenever 
they  have  asserted  a  right  to  block,  by  an  appeal 
to  authority,  whether  ecclesiastical  or  scriptural, 
the  freest  possible  inquiry  into  the  secrets  of  the 


THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  DOMAIN.  13 

universe.  They  have  claimed  for  themselves  too 
little,  in  so  far  as  they  have  failed  to  insist  with 
sufficient  emphasis  upon  the  right  of  theology  to 
eminent  domain.  To  be  content  with  anything 
less  than  supremacy  is  fatal  to  theology.  She 
signs  her  own  death-warrant  when  she  writes 
herself  down  as  one  among  many  sciences  ;  when 
she  confesses  that  there  are  any  lines  of  enquiry 
that  have  no  interest  for  her.  It  is  the  blunder 
of  timidity  for  her  to  undertake  to  compound 
with  her  assailants  for  decent  recognition  as  a 
poor  relation.  Let  her  rise  to  her  full  stature, 
and  without  fear  assert  her  just  prerogatives  of 
motherhood  and  queenship. 

But,  in  these  days,  assertion  unsupported  does 
not  re-seat  banished  monarchs  on  their  thrones. 
"We  must  look  into  the  question  of  right.  What 
is  it  that  essentially  differences  theology  from 
any  one  special  science  among  the  many  ?  Is 
it  that  theologians  employ  a  logical  method 
unlike  that  in  common  use  among  scientific  en- 
quirers ?  Some  have  thought  so.  It  is  not  un- 
common to  hear  it  said  that  since  theological 
reasoning  is  deductive  and  scientific  reasoning 
inductive,  misunderstandings  between  the  users 
of  the  two  processes  are  inevitable.  But  surely 
this  is  a  most  hasty  judgment,  for  nothing  can  be 
more  easily  shown  than  that  the  two  classes  of 
reasoners  employ  both  methods  interchangeably, 
as  the  occasion  may  require.     The  discovery  of 


14  THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  DOMAIN. 

the  planet  E'eptune  was  as  beautiful  an  instance 
of  what  may  be  done  by  deductive  reasoning  as 
could  possibly  be  imagined ;  while  again  the 
most  profound  view  of  the  dogma  of  the  Trinity 
is  that  which  sees  in  it  the  result  of  a  process  of 
induction  worked  out  by  the  collective  mind  of 
the  Church  with  the  statements  of  Scripture  and 
the  phenomena  of  consciousness  for  data.  The 
formula  was  accepted  as  the  only  one  that  reason- 
ably accounted  for  all  the  facts.  It  is  plain, 
then,  that  this  easy  and  shallow  classification 
will  not  aid  us  in  finding  the  precise  point  at 
which  theological  science  and  the  several  sciences 
part  company. 

But  if  the  difference  between  the  two  sorts  of 
reasoning  lie  not  in  the  manner,  is  it  to  be  sought 
for  in  the  matter  ?  Is  it  the  fact  that  two  well- 
defined  districts  of  thought  can  be  set  apart  as 
belonging  the  one  to  scientific,  the  other  to  theo- 
logical inquirers  ?  Here  again  we  shall  be 
obliged  to  answer,  ]^o.  The  very  cause  of  the 
heat  that  has  arisen  between  the  theological  and 
the  anti-theological  writers  is,  that  their  fields  of 
inquiry  to  a  great  extent  coincide.  Each  is  try- 
ing to  prove  the  other  a  trespasser  upon  marches 
that  really  belong  to  both.  There  is  no  such 
rigid  boundary-line  between  the  spiritual  and  the 
natural  as  will  permit  our  ranging  the  theologians 
all  on  one  side,  and  the  men  of  science  all  on  the 
other.     Coleridge  endeavored  to  found  a  philos- 


THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  DOMAIN.  15 

ophy  of  inspiration  upon  such  a  distinction  ;  but 
even  his  great  powers  were  unequal  to  the  task. 
The  farther  we  penetrate  into  the  borderland 
between  the  seen  and  the  unseen,  the  material 
and  the  immaterial,  the  more  evident  does  it  be- 
come that  no  great  gulf  breaks  up  their  conti- 
nuity. It  is,  moreover,  very  interesting  to  notice 
that  the  antagonism  to  which  I  have  alluded  is 
much  more  marked  in  connection  with  the  mixed 
than  in  the  case  of  the  pure  sciences.  There  is  no 
strife  between  Geometry  and  Christianity  ;  the 
Gospel  has  no  controversy  with  the  Calculus; 
but  Geology  has  been  at  war  with  Genesis  ever 
since  that  science  came  into  being,  and  many  a 
recent  invective  against  theological  narrowness 
would  lose  half  its  force,  had  the  Church  never 
persecuted  astronomy  in  the  person  of  Galileo. 
All  this  grows  out  of  the  fact  that  theologians 
and  naturalists  have  so  much,  rather  than  so  lit- 
tle, subject  matter  in  common.  Who  can  fail  to 
trace  a  certain  intellectual  resemblance  between 
the  Calvin  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  the  Dar- 
win of  the  nineteenth  ?  Parallel  phenomena 
suggested  to  the  one  thinker  his  doctrine  of  the 
salvability  of  the  few,  and  to  the  other  his  law 
of  the  survival  of  the  fittest. 

Theology  and  philosophy  do  but  echo  one  an- 
other. The  evolution  controversy  now  engrossing 
the  attention  of  the  naturalists  is  only  the  old 
strife     between    creationism    and    traducianism 


16  THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  DOMAIN. 

under  a  new  name.  With  the  triumph  of  "  the 
primordial  germ  "  will  come  back  the  Augustin- 
ian  doctrine,  that  we  all  sinned  in  Adam  by 
actual  presence  in  his  personality.  Modern  stu- 
dents of  nature  seldom  speak  of  the  Mosaic  cos- 
mogony with  overmuch  respect,  and  yet  it  is  as- 
tonishing to  notice  what  a  passion  for  world- 
making  they  often  exhibit  themselves.  If 
Moses's  account  of  the  origin  of  things  be  a  tax 
upon  faith,  what  shall  we  say  of  Lord  Kelvin's  ? 
No,  men  cannot  help  thinking  upon  these  sub- 
jects and  cannot  help  reasoning  about  them  ;  the 
mind  demands  some  theory  of  beginnings ;  and 
doubtless  new  cosmogonies  will  be  forthcoming, 
yearly,  while  the  world  lasts.  It  is  plain  there- 
fore that  we  cannot  segregate  a  certain  number 
of  facts  and  say  peremptorily,  either  to  the  the- 
ologian or  to  the  naturalist,  "  Hands  off  !  " 

Where  then  are  we  to  find  the  differentia  of 
theology  ?  Not,  it  would  seem,  in  the  logical 
method  employed,  nor  yet  in  the  subject  of  in- 
quiry. Where  then?  In  the  postulates,  I  an- 
swer, from  which  theology  starts.  In  every  effort 
of  human  thought,  the  reasoner  must  have  some- 
thing to  lean  his  back  against,  otherwise  he  gets 
no  purchase.  This  backing  is  the  postulate,  or 
conceded  truth,  from  which  his  argument  starts. 
All  the  sciences  have  their  postulates ;  some 
more,  some  less.  The  pure  sciences  have  but 
one,  namely,  the  accuracy  of  the  laws  of  thought. 


THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  DOMAIN.  17 

This  much  must  be  conceded,  or  Euclid  himself 
is  impotent.  The  mixed  sciences  require  at  least 
two  further  postulates,,  which  are  the  reality  of 
the  external  world  and  the  general  credibility  of 
human  testimony.  To  these,  theology  adds  still 
other  two,  which  are  peculiarly  her  own,  namely, 
the  existence  of  a  personal  God,  and  the  reality 
of  a  moral  distinction  between  right  and  wrong. 
God  and  conscience,  these  are  the  distinctive  pos- 
tulates of  theology.  No  man  is  obliged  to  accept 
them.  They  do  not  compel  assent,  for,  if  they 
did,  they  would  be  axioms  and  not  postulates. 
And  yet,  from  the  moment  of  our  acceptance  of 
them,  all  our  serious  thinking,  if  it  be  consistent 
with  itself,  becomes  ipso  facto  theological.  With 
them  for  implements,  theology  has  been,  these 
many  centuries,  building  her  temple ;  using  for 
material  the  facts  of  consciousness,  the  facts  of 
nature  and  the  facts  of  history  ;  casting  away  as 
rubbish,  now  and  then,  what  for  a  time  had 
seemed  permanent  portions  of  the  fabric,  but  pre- 
serving, all  the  while,  certain  grand  lines  of  sym- 
metry and  strength  by  which  men  have  been 
able  to  take  knowledge  of  the  building  that  it  is 
of  God. 

Consider  the  grounds  of  our  religious  convic- 
tions. As  Christian  men,  we  accept  the  Catholic 
creed, — why  ?  Because  the  articles  of  it  have  all 
of  them  been  demonstrated  beyond  the  possibil- 
ity of  cavil  ?    No,  there  is  not  one  of  them  that 


18  THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  DOMAIN. 

admits  of  demonstration  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
word  ;  but  we  accept  the  Creed  because,  starting 
from  the  belief  that  God  is,  and  that  He  is  right- 
eous, we  have  been  led,  taking  everything  into 
account,  to  find  in  its  pregnant  sentences,  alto- 
gether the  likeliest  answer  to  the  questions  of 
the  mind  and  of  the  heart.  "  Of  the  heart,"  I 
say,  as  well  as  "  of  the  mind,"  for  while  theology 
rightly  refuses  to  be  relegated  to  *'  the  region  of 
emotion,"  she  is  quick  to  insist  that  in  any  scien- 
tific study  of  man,  any  accurate  inventory  of  his 
belongings,  not  only  his  power  to  think  and 
know,  but  also  his  instincts  of  love,  worship  and 
obedience  must  find  room. 

Note,  now,  another  point.  It  is  only  from  the 
vantage  ground  of  theology  that  the  correlation 
of  the  various  parts  of  human  knowledge  can  be 
effected.  The  system  is  not  heliocentric  until 
you  have  enthroned  Deity  at  the  heart  of  things. 
In  their  several  lines  of  activity,  the  sciences  can 
push  ahead  without  the  aid  of  the  postulates  of 
theology.  Experience  shows  this.  Undevout 
astronomers  have  lived  who  were  perfectly  sane. 
La  Place  had  "no  need  of  the  hypothesis  of 
God."  But  when  it  comes  to  unifying  the  vari- 
ous branches  of  human  knowledge,  bringing  his- 
tory and  art  and  language  into  harmony  with 
their  half-sisters  among  the  sciences  called  nat- 
ural ;  when  it  comes  to  ranging  in  jast  order  the 
grades  and  levels  of  the  mind's  acquirement,  then 


THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  D03IAIN.  19 

is  seen,  plainly  enough,  the  need  of  some  point 
that  shall  answer  to  the  apex  of  the  pyramid. 
Theology  supplies  this  want ;  and  by  so  doing 
enables  the  eye  to  look  down  quietly  on  all  the 
slopes  of  truth. 

It  is  obvious  to  remark  that,  if  this  be  the  true 
state  of  the  case,  then  there  are,  in  fact,  no 
"limitations  of  scientific  and  theological  in- 
quiry "  that  can  be  called  "  mutual,"  since  it  is 
impossible  for  the  whole  to  be  bounded  by  any 
of  its  parts.  One  can  speak  with  propriety  of 
the  mutual  boundary,  say  of  Scotland  and  of 
Great  Britain,  for  the  coast  line  of  the  northern 
kingdom  is  a  common,  not  a  mutual  frontier.  So 
with  the  sciences ;  they  have  their  mutual  limita- 
tions among  themselves  when  they  happen  to  lie 
adjacent,  but  of  no  one  of  them  can  it  be  said, 
that  between  it  and  theology  there  are  limita- 
tions mutual,  for  the  realm  of  theology  is  not 
that  of  a  science;  it  is  science, — science  so  suffused 
and  transfigured  by  the  light  within,  that  her 
face  doth  shine  as  the  sun,  as  her  raiment  is 
white  as  the  light. 

I  began  by  contrasting  science  and  the  sci- 
ences ;  let  me  end  by  setting  over  against  one 
another,  theology  and  the  theologies.  True 
theological  wisdom  lies  in  the  just  distinguish- 
ment  of  Avhat  is  permanently  essential  from  what 
is  transient  and  accidental  in  religion.  The 
Eoman  Catholic  usage  of  dividing  doctrine  into 


20  THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  DOMAIN. 

that  which  is  de  fide  and  that  which  is  not,  is,  in 
principle,  profoundly  philosophical.  It  answers 
to  the  distinction  men  of  science  draw  between 
the  grand  generalizations  which  have  stood  the 
test  of  universal  application  through  long  periods 
of  time,  and  the  crude  conjectures  of  the  passing 
hour. 

The  present  is  preeminently  a  time  for  theolo- 
gians to  bend  all  their  energies  to  the  task  of 
determining  how  much  of  Christian  doctrine  is 
essential  to  the  perpetuity  of  Christian  faith. 
Sentimentalists  assert  that  none  is ;  but  thinking 
men  know  better.  Dogmas  there  are,  which,  for 
the  Christian  to  surrender,  will  be  to  acknowl- 
edge that  Christianity  is  dead.  Which  are 
these?  That  is  the  question  of  questions  for 
theology  to-day.  Kome  has  decided  upon  her 
criterion,  and  must  abide  by  it.  It  remains  for 
those  who  believe  that  the  end  is  not  yet,  to 
labor  patiently  and  humbly,  waiting  for  "the 
consolation  of  Israel."  Perchance  God  will  show 
us,  by  and  by,  that  His  truth  is  larger  and  more 
satisfying  than  either  the  Koman  or  the  anti- 
Roman  statement  of  it.  We  have  no  occasion  to 
be  troubled  with  the  thought  that  broken  theol- 
ogies lie  scattered  all  along  the  Church's  line  of 
march ;  so  do  broken  sciences.  It  is  idle  for 
divines  and  naturalists  to  recriminate  upon  this 
point.  Alchemy  and  astrology,  once  studied  as 
science  in  the  universities  of  Europe,  fairly  offset 


THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  DOMAIN.  21 

the  superstitions  charged  upon  the  Fathers  and 
the  laborious  trifling  of  the  Schoolmen. 

The  question  of  real  moment  is,  whether 
modern  research  has  arrived  at,  or  is  likely  to 
arrive  at,  results  utterly  irreconcilable  with  the 
first  principles  of  Christian  faith,  subversive  not 
alone  of  this  or  that  system  of  theology,  but  of 
theology  as  such,  the  logical  contradictories  of 
God  and  conscience.  If  such  be  the  case,  then 
there  is  indeed  ground  for  alarm,  yes,  for  terror. 
There  is  no  new  religion  ready  to  take  the  place 
of  the  old  one,  and  the  gloom  that  must  presently 
settle  on  the  world  will  be  the  blacker,  in  propor- 
tion as  the  glare  of  the  explosion  that  brought 
down  the  citadel  was  bright.  Happily,  we  need 
not  torment  ourselves  with  any  such  apprehen- 
sions. The  alarmists  on  both  sides  have  done 
their  best,  or  their  worst,  and  still  two  facts  con- 
front us ;  the  Church  stands  firm,  though  quiver- 
ing, while  knowledge  grows  "from  more  to 
more "  each  day  we  live.  The  lesson  for  us  all 
to  lay  to  heart  is  the  homely  one  of  moderation, 
intellectual  temperance,  a  grace  always  difficult 
of  exercise  to  ardent  souls,  but  a  condition  indis- 
pensable both  to  the  making  and  the  keeping  of 
peace. 

The  theologians  must  learn  to  look  upon  the 
naturalists  as  their  allies,  rather  than  their  an- 
tagonists, and  this  too,  whether  the  naturalists 
care  to  be  so  regarded  or  not.     Truth  is  truth, 


22  THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  DOMAIN. 

however  and  whencesoever  obtained ;  and  we 
can  never  have  occasion  to  be  either  afraid  of  it 
or  unthankful  for  it.  The  naturalists,  in  their 
several  departments,  are,  to  borrow  Bacon's  fine 
phrase,  "  the  merchants  of  light."  If  we  obey 
the  traditional  saying  of  our  Lord,  "  Be  ye  skil- 
ful money-changers,"  we  shall  not  be  too  proud, 
but  only  too  glad  to  buy  of  them  such  merchan- 
dise as  they  have  to  sell.  Theologians  ought  to 
discern  in  their  own  inherited  formulas,  larger 
meanings  than  they  have  been  accustomed  to  see 
there.  The  agency,  for  instance,  ascribed  in 
Scripture  to  the  Son  of  God  in  the  work  of  crea- 
tion, ought  to  be  studied  in  the  light  of  our 
modern  knowledge  of  the  extent  of  creation. 
We  ought,  if  I  may  so  speak,  to  read  the  Incar- 
nation into  IS'ature,  thus  making  Christ  the  inter- 
preter of  God's  unwritten  as  well  as  of  His 
written  Word.  The  fresh  hymns  of  the  early, 
and  more  especially  the  Eastern  Church,  breathe 
this  spirit  in  a  wonderful  degree ;  and  this,  per- 
haps, is  one  secret  of  their  recent  return  to  favor. 
Our  implicit  beliefs  have  depths  of  which  our  ex- 
plicit beliefs  are  no  measure. 

On  the  other  hand,  having  confessed  our  own 
short-comings,  we  may  fairly  ask  of  the  men  of 
science  that,  in  arguing  with  us,  thej^  treat  our 
two  postulates  with  respect,  or,  failing  to  do  so, 
at  least  give  a  reason  for  such  disregard.  It  is 
far  more  common  with  the  anti-theological  wri- 


THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  DOMAIN,  23 

ters,  as  everybody  who  is  familiar  with  the  con- 
troversy knows,  to  assume  that  these  postulates 
are  irrational,  than  it  is  to  attempt  proving  them 
to  be  so.  If  the  existence  of  a  God  be  not  a 
demonstrable  point,  far  less,  let  them  remember, 
is  his  non-existence  demonstrable.  And,  further, 
it  seems  only  reasonable  to  ask  that  investigators 
abstain  from  exulting  over  conclusions  confess- 
edly tentative,  not  final,  but  which,  if  given  forth 
as  the  dicta  of  science,  are  sure  to  unsettle  and 
distress  multitudes  who  are  themselves  incapable, 
either  of  following  the  argument,  or  of  criticising 
the  inference.  Certainly,  no  special  glory  can 
accrue  from  tossing  shells  into  the  quiet  homes 
of  non-combatants. 

It  is  easy  to  declaim  against  "  teleological  con- 
siderations " ;  easy  to  laugh  at  Dr.  Paley  and  the 
antiquated  science  of  the  Bridgewater  Treatises  ; 
but,  after  all,  what  have  you  gained  when  you 
have  persuaded  men  that  there  is  no  trace  of 
conscious  purpose  anywhere  in  the  universe  ? 
Would  it  be  really  a  ground  for  merriment,  were 
the  voice  of  supplication  to  be  effectually  silenced 
on  the  earth  ?  "  Living  forces  "  will  prove,  with 
the  bulk  of  men,  but  a  poor  substitute  for  a  liv- 
ing God. 

The  mansion  is  a  marvel  of  architecture. 
The  grounds  have  been  exquisitely  laid  out. 
Koom  follows  room  in  endless  succession ;  and 
from  the  walls  the  faces  of  a  score  of  generations 


24  THEOLOGY'S  EMINENT  DOMAIN. 

look  down  on  us  from  underneath  trophies  of  the 
chase  and  of  the  fight.  Here  and  there  are 
shelves  crowded  with  all  the  learning  of  the  past, 
and  through  the  windows  we  catch  glimpses  of 
lawn,  and  lake,  and  woodland,  shot  across  by  the 
slant  rays  of  the  autumn  sun.  But  what  is  the 
secret  of  this  strange  silence  everywhere  ?  Why 
are  the  eyes  of  the  servants  cast  down  as  we 
meet  them  ?  "What  makes  the  foliage  of  the 
avenues  droop  as  if  in  sorrow,  and  the  very  at- 
mosphere to  weigh  heavily  on  us  as  we  walk  and 
are  sad  ?  Why  is  there  no  sign  or  sound  of  joy  ? 
The  reason  is  ample ;  the  master  of  the  house, 
they  tell  us,  is  lying  dead. 


11. 

ECCLESIA  MEDIATKIX. 


II. 

ECCLESIA   MEDIATKIX. 

Cheistianity  is  something  more  than  a  form 
of  thought :  it  is  a  way  of  life.  More  strenu- 
ously dogmatic  than  any  other  religion  that  has 
ever  been,  it  is  nevertheless  persistent  in  refusing 
to  be  shut  up  to  dogma,  as  if  that  were  all.  It 
owns  a  shepherding  as  well  as  an  indoctrinating 
function,  and  proposes  not  only  to  instruct  but 
to  gather  the  souls  of  men.  Its  aim  is  the  "  mak- 
ing ready  a  people "  quite  as  much  as  the  elab- 
oration of  a  self -consistent  theology,  for  it  is  of 
the  essence  of  the  thing  to  be  social.  The  other 
participants^  in  this  discussion  appear  to  me  to 
leave  this  feature  of  Christ's  religion  too  much  in 
the  shadow.  They  have  laid  the  main  stress 
upon  the  intellectual  relief  afforded  by  the  sev- 
eral systems  of  belief  they  so  ably  represent,  and 
have  touched  lightly,  if  at  all,  upon  the  value  of 
the  structural  element  in  religion,  the  effort 
Christ's  Gospel  is  forever  making  to  get  itself 
adequately  clothed  upon  and  housed.     I  shall, 

^  This  paper  was  originally  contributed  to  a  "  Symposium ' '  on 
the  relative  merits  of  the  various  religious  denominations  in 
the  United  States. 

27 


28  ECCLESIA  MEDIATRIX. 

therefore,  win  at  least  the  credit  of  sounding  a 
fresh  note  when  I  frankly  avow  that  I  am  an 
Episcopalian,  or,  to  use  the  broader  word,  a 
"Churchman,"  not  merely  because  I  "like  the 
forms,"  but  because  the  Episcopal  Church  has,  to 
my  thinking,  better  adaptability  to  the  role  of 
reconciler,  more  of  the  qualifications  of  a  peace- 
maker among  alienated  brethren,  than  any  other. 
In  this  conviction  I  may,  of  course,  be  utterly 
mistaken.  My  interpretation  of  what  has  been, 
my  analysis  of  what  is,  and  my  horoscope  of 
what  is  to  come,  may  all  of  them  be  hopelessly 
at  fault ;  but  we  are  speaking  out  our  minds  in  a 
free  and  friendly  way,  and  each  man's  exhibit  of 
reasons  must  pass  for  what  it  is  worth.  No  one 
of  us  arrogates  to  himself  infallibility,  or  would 
be  likely  to  find  disciples  if  he  did. 

Let  me  safeguard  myself  at  the  outset  against 
a  possible  and  only  too  probable  misinterpreta- 
tion of  my  purpose.  I  am  not  setting  out  to 
prove  that  there  can  be  no  kingdom  of  heaven 
until  all  men  have  turned  Anglican;  my  more 
modest  ambition  is  to  show  that,  once  the  desira- 
bility of  organic  unity  has  been  conceded,  there 
are  substantial  reasons  for  treating  with  respect 
certain  constructional  features  that  belong  to  the 
Episcopal  Church,  not  by  virtue  of  any  superior 
sanctity  on  the  part  of  her  present  adherents, 
but,  as  we  may  say,  providentially,  by  inherit- 
ance.    Holding,   as    I   do,  with   Dr.   Dollinger, 


ECCLESIA  MEDIATRIX.  29 

that  "  the  want  of  a  people's  church  is  a  want 
that  cannot  be  supplied  by  anything  else,"  I  find 
myself  constrained  by  motives  of  patriotism,  as 
well  as  of  religion,  to  cast  in  my  lot  with  that 
one  of  the  forms  of  organized  Christianity  in 
America  that  seems  to  me  to  offer  the  most  feasi- 
ble basis  for  reunion. 

Undoubtedly  the  popular  conception  of  church 
unity  is  one  that  answers  to  the  phrase  Irish  pol- 
iticians have  of  late  made  so  familiar — "  a  union 
of  hearts."  "We  are  assured  with  vehemence  that 
what  is  wanted  is  a  Christian,  in  contradistinction 
to  a  Church,  unity — a  community  of  feeling,  a 
oneness  of  sentiment,  as  contrasted  with  any  such 
unity  as  is  organic,  visible,  known  and  read  of  all 
men.  It  is  because  I  believe  the  setting  of  these 
two  things  thus  sharply  in  contrast  to  be  thor- 
oughly unphilosophical  that  I  am  a  churchman. 
In  the  Apostles'  Creed  "  The  Communion  of 
Saints,"  or  common  fellowship  of  believers,  is  the 
complement  of  the  phrase  "  The  holy  Catholic 
Church."  The  two  expressions  make  one  article 
of  faith,  precisely  as  the  two  lobes  make  one 
brain.  A  fellowship  of  believers  who  are  one 
in  heart  and  mind  can  never  rightly  rest  con- 
tent until  it  has  translated  itself  into  a  visible 
fact  as  to  which  there  can  be  no  manner  of 
mistake.  When  the  American  people  was  bat- 
tling for  its  life  forty  years  ago,  did  anybody 
imagine  that  it  would  have  been  a  satisfactory 


30  ECCLESIA   MEDIATRIX. 

conclusion  of  the  strife  for  North  and  South  to 
have  agreed  that  thenceforth  they  would  be  one 
in  feeling  and  sentiment,  but  organically  sepa- 
rate ?  This  solution  of  the  problem  was,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  frequently  urged  during  the  con- 
flict, but  never  accepted,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  on  the  part  of  the  North  it  would  have  been 
a  yielding  of  the  main  point.  Church  and  State 
are  in  many  points  unlike,  but,  in  this  particular 
point  of  structure,  are  they  so  unlike  that  unity 
must  mean  one  thing  in  the  one  sphere  and  some- 
thing utterly  different  in  the  other  ?  The  truth 
is,  a  mighty  impulse  towards  a  better  unity  than 
has  ever  been,  is  making  itself  felt  throughout 
Christendom.  God  Himself  seems  to  have  been 
making  ready  for  it  by  quickening  the  means  of 
communication  between  place  and  place,  by 
breaking  down  the  barriers  which  diversity  of 
manners  and  of  language  has  created,  and  by 
bringing  people  everywhere  more  effectually  face 
to  face  and  hand  to  hand.  Moreover,  this  eager 
desire  for  unity  will  not  be  satisfied  with  any- 
thing short  of  the  real  thing.  No  mere  hand- 
shaking on  platforms,  coupled  with  effusive  offers 
of  an  "  exchange  of  pulpits,"  under  stress  of  deep 
emotion,  and  in  the  face  of  admiring  audiences, 
will  meet  the  grand  emergency  or  satisfy  the 
ardent  longing  of  God's  people  to  be  one.  What 
is  wanted  is  something  more  and  better  than 
"  league,"     "  alliance,"     or    "  confederation  " — 


ECCLESIA  MEDIATRIX.  31 

namely,  unity.  Again,  let  me  insist  that  I  am 
far  from  supposing  that  the  Episcopal  Church 
precisely  as  it  is,  unchanged  in  even  the  slightest 
line  or  feature,  is  adequate  to  the  supply  of  this 
great  national  need.  I  only  claim  for  it  a  special 
fitness  for  the  task  of  meditation. 

The  three  divisions  into  which  all  church  life 
naturally  falls  are  doctrine,  discipline,  and  wor- 
ship. It  is  an  ancient  classification,  with  no 
charm  of  novelty,  and  yet  I  know  of  none  other 
under  which  we  should  be  more  likely  to  do  our 
thinking  to  good  purpose.  To  begin,  then,  with 
doctrine. 

In  what  mood  are  thoughtful  Americans  at 
the  present  time  contemplating  the  whole  subject 
of  Christian  doctrine  ?  And  is  there  anything  in 
the  position  taken  by  the  American  Episcopal 
Church  with  respect  to  dogma  that  ought  spe- 
cially to  command  confidence  and  win  allegiance  ? 
It  will  scarcely  be  denied  that,  in  common  with 
the  other  civilized  nations  of  the  world,  we  are 
passing  through  a  season  of  unwonted  agitation 
in  the  field  of  religious  thought.  I  purposely 
avoid  the  overworked  phrase  "  a  period  of  transi- 
tion," for  the  reason  that  all  periods  are  periods 
of  transition,  and  it  is  not  to  be  expected  or  to 
be  desired  that  we  should  ever  reach  the  period 
of  immobility.  But  that  ours  is,  if  not  a  faith- 
less, then  certainly  a  faith-questioning,  genera- 
tion, who  can  deny?     Everything,  without  dis- 


32  ECCLESIA  MEDIATRIX. 

tinction,  goes  into  the  crucible  to  be  tried  by 
fire.  The  world  of  thinking  men  seems  to  have 
resolved  itself,  for  the  time  being,  into  a  great 
debating  society,  and  from  the  roll  of  possible 
subjects  of  discussion  nothing  is  excluded.  Ke- 
view  vies  with  review,  essayist  with  essayist, 
symposiarch  with  symposiarch,  in  setting  forth 
new  readings  of  old  creeds.  Accepted  beliefs 
are  challenged  with  an  unreserve  as  bold  as  the 
haste  with  which  new  ones  are  welcomed  is 
indecent.  The  healthy  radicalism,  which  is  so 
named  because  it  treats  the  plant  through  the 
roots,  gives  place  to  an  unhealthy  radicalism, 
Avhich  is  so  named  because  it  pulls  up  the  plant 
by  the  roots.  The  result  is  something  very  like 
a  panic,  under  stress  of  which  some  religious 
minds  have  betaken  themselves  to  a  cloud-land 
of  uncertainty,  a  misty  region  of  half-belief, 
where  nothing  is  asserted  with  heartiness  and 
nothing  denied  with  vehemence,  while  others 
have  sought  refuge  upon  what  they  trust  will 
prove  the  firm  standing-ground  of  papal  infalli- 
bility. But  has  it  really  come  to  this  in  Chris- 
tendom, that  sober-minded  men  and  women  must 
make  their  choice  between  believing  everything 
and  believing  nothing;  between  wholesale  cre- 
dulity and  stolid  incredulity ;  between  drugging 
the  intellect  into  a  dead  sleep  of  acquiescence 
and  letting  it  run  wild  in  the  intoxication  of  a 
freedom  wholly  without  limit  ? 


ECCLESIA  MEDIATRIX.  33 

The  historic  church  of  the  English  race  says, 
and  since  the  daj^s  of  the  Keformation  has  always 
said:  "No;  there  is  no  such  hard  necessity  of 
choice.  God  has  not  thus  given  us  over  to  the 
*  falsehood  of  extremes.'  Discrimination  is  the 
master-word  that  is  to  help  us  out  of  our  per- 
plexity. We  are  to  distinguish,  carefully  and 
critically  to  distinguish,  between  those  truths 
which  attach  to  the  essence  of  the  religion  of 
Christ  and  cannot  be  surrendered  without  shiver- 
ing the  church  to  splinters,  and  those  other  and 
less  important  articles  of  faith  about  which  men's 
minds  are  always  liable  to  change,  partly  as  a 
result  of  the  inevitable  law  of  action  and  reac- 
tion, and  partly  in  consequence  of  the  fresh  dis- 
coveries of  unsuspected  or  only  half-suspected 
truths  which  almost  every  morning  brings  to 
light." 

The  churchman  finds  this  needed  summary  of 
essential  truths  in  that  simple  form  of  words 
which  has  stood  the  brunt  of  fifty  generations  of 
criticism — the  Apostles'  Creed.  He  plants  him- 
self upon  that  strong  confession  which  begins, 
"  I  believe  in  God  the  Father  Almighty,  Maker 
of  heaven  and  earth,"  which  goes  on  to  say,  "  I 
believe  in  Jesus  Christ  His  only  Son  our  Lord," 
and  which  ends  with  "the  Life  everlasting." 
These  statements,  he  reasons,  make  the  basis  of 
Christianity — not  men's  argumentations  about 
them,  but  the  statements  themselves.     I  rest  my- 


34  ECGLESIA  MEDIATRIX. 

self  on  them.  If  they  go  by  the  board,  Chris- 
tianity goes  too  ;  but  while  they  stand  the  Church 
stands.  While  faith  in  them  survives,  faith  in 
much  else  that  is  good  and  precious  will  live  on 
too. 

Is  not  this  a  sensible  position  ?  The  Koman- 
ist,  indeed,  strives  to  turn  it  by  challenging  us 
to  show  cause  why  we  should  draw  the  line  at 
this  point  rather  than  at  another — why  we  should 
accept  the  Apostles'  Creed,  and  refuse  to  accept 
the  doctrinal  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent  and 
the  creed  of  Pope  Pius  lY.  But  our  answer  is  a 
sufficient  one.  We  are  content  with  those  few 
dogmas  upon  which  the  common  sense  (using  the 
phrase  in  its  large  philosophical,  rather  than  its 
colloquial,  signification)  of  the  people  of  God,  of 
"  holy  Church  throughout  all  the  world,"  has  set 
its  seal. 

Again  I  ask.  Is  it  not  an  admirably  chosen 
position  ?  Does  it  not  seem  as  if  this  Church  had 
been  guided  by  more  than  human  wisdom  when, 
in  that  crisis  of  her  destiny,  the  Eeformation, 
she  wrote  this  simple  creed  upon  her  chancel 
walls,  made  the  repetition  of  it  a  part  of  her 
daily  worship,  insisted  upon  its  being  taught  to 
every  little  child  within  her  borders,  and  required 
assent  to  it  as  the  condition  precedent  of  sharing 
in  her  sacramental  privileges  ?  Moreover,  is  it 
not  a  doctrinal  position  that  ought  preeminently 
to  commend  itself  to  a  community  torn  and  dis- 


ECCLE8IA  MEDIATRIX.  35 

tracted  as  ours  is  by  the  many  voices  of  this 
modern  world?  Does  it  not  offer  us  just  what 
we  want — firm  anchorage,  and  yet  rope  enough 
to  let  the  ship  rise  and  fall  with  the  tossing 
waves?  Without  the  grip  of  the  anchor  the 
vessel  would  presently  drift  upon  a  lee  shore; 
without  the  play  of  the  rope  it  would  be  pretty 
sure  to  founder.  What  we  really  need  is  a  firm 
grasp  upon  essentials,  and  a  wise  liberty  in  all 
things  else.  The  American  mind  is  too  religious 
to  rest  content  with  treating  as  an  open  question, 
to  be  re-discussed  every  few  days,  or,  still  worse, 
every  Sunday,  such  momentous  matters  as  the 
existence  of  a  God  and  the  reality  of  a  life  to 
come. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  American  mind  is  too 
intelligent  a  mind  to  be  willing  to  accept  the 
utterances  of  a  foreign  ecclesiastic  as  its  inspired 
standard  and  unerring  rule  in  matters  of  faith  and 
morals.  We  have  high  authority  for  believing 
that  wisdom  and  understanding,  counsel  and 
knowledge,  are  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  man. 
Surely  we  put  them  to  their  best  use  when  we 
discriminate  between  the  thing  that  must  be  and 
the  thing  that  need  not  necessarily  be,  between 
the  meat  and  drink  that  are  essential  to  the  soul's 
healthy  life  and  those  other  foods  of  which  we 
cannot  know  with  certainty  whether  they  are 
helpful  or  harmful,  safe  or  perilous. 

3o  much  for  doctrine.     I  pass  to  polity. 


36  ECCLESIA  MEDIATRIX. 

It  is  plain  beyond  all  question  that  the  thought 
of  governance  entered  into  and  made  a  part  of 
Christ's  purpose  with  respect  to  his  Church. 
"  Feed  my  sheep,"  said  He,  and  in  so  saying  im- 
plied the  whole  duty  of  caring  for  the  flock. 
But  who  shall  exercise  this  power  of  governance  ? 
In  what  hands  is  the  authority  vested  ?  Is  the 
right  absolute,  or  has  it  limits?  and  if  it  has 
limits,  what  are  they  ?  It  is,  of  course,  easy  to 
escape  the  embarrassment  such  questions  occa- 
sion, by  denying  that  God  ever  meant  his  Church 
to  take  on  visible  form  or  possess  outward  organ- 
ization. If  the  true  conception  of  the  Church 
be  that  which  makes  of  it  a  disembodied  spirit, 
why,  then,  all  questions  of  vesture  and  drapery 
vanish  out  of  sight.  But  if,  with  St.  Paul,  we 
believe  that  there  was  meant  to  be  the  "  one 
body  "  as  well  as  the  "  one  spirit,"  why,  then,  we 
cannot  so  easily  wave  aside,  as  a  thing  of  no  im- 
port or  value,  this  matter  of  governance  or 
discipline. 

Constitutional  episcopacy,  as  it  is  coming  to  be 
called,  takes  hold  upon  the  far  past  by  its  rever- 
ent solicitude  to  preserve  continuity  with  the 
ancient  Church  through  transmitted  holy  orders ; 
while  at  the  same  time  it  takes  hold  upon  the 
living  present  by  its  frank  recognition  of  the 
right  of  the  whole  Church,  laity  as  well  as  clergy, 
to  have  a  voice  in  the  making  of  the  laws,  and 
by  its  ready  willingness  to  receive  and  to  abide 


ECCLESIA  MEDIATRIX.  37 

by  those  principles  of  representative  government 
which  have  wrought  such  woaders  in  the  modern 
state.  To  many  minds  the  mention  of  the 
episcopate  as  a  form  of  church  polity  is  suggest- 
ive of  absolutism.  All  that  is  Puritan  in  the 
American  character  (and  much  that  is  best  in 
American  character  fairly  claims  that  epithet) 
rises  up  in  protest  at  the  very  mention  of  the 
"lord  bishop,"  because  it  thinks  that  it  sees  in 
him  the  symbol  of  arbitrary  power.  But  fair- 
minded  Americans,  let  us  hope,  will  not  be  long 
in  discovering  that,  under  a  constitutional  epis- 
copacy, the  lord  bishop,  as  an  irresponsible  func- 
tionary, has  no  place.  May  we  not  also  hope 
that,  this  prejudice  once  removed,  the  practical 
genius  of  our  people  will  be  quick  to  discern  the 
immense  advantages  that  attach  to  a  recognition 
of  the  principle  of  headship  or  superintendence 
in  such  work  as  the  Church  of  Christ  in  this  land 
has  been  set  to  do  ? 

Another  point  connected  with  discipline  is  that 
which  touches  upon  the  nurture  of  children.  By 
admitting  children  to  holy  baptism  this  church 
fully  commits  itself  to  the  logical  result  that  the 
little  ones  so  received  are  actually  and  really 
made  members  of  Christ's  body  and  heirs  pre- 
sumptive of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  In  other 
words,  we  believe  that,  in  a  Christian  land,  chil- 
dren ought  to  be  brought  up  as  Christian  chil- 
dren from  the  start.     We  would  not  have  them 


38  ECCLESIA   MEDIATRIX. 

treated  as  "  strangers  and  foreigners,'*  but  from 
the  cradle  upward  we  would  see  thrown  around 
their  path  all  the  safeguards  and  all  the  encour- 
agements and  all  the  helps  the  Church  can  give. 
We  interpret  the  Saviour's  words,  "  Suffer  little 
children  to  come  unto  Me,"  as  giving  us  a  Avar- 
rant  to  take  them  to  Him  in  the  only  way  that 
it  seems  possible  to  do  so,  now  that  He  is  with- 
drawn from  our  sight,  and,  having  brought  them 
to  Him  thus,  we  believe  that  He  does  not  blame 
our  faith. 

In  reply  to  Baptist  objectors,  we  insist  that 
the  burden  of  proof  is  on  them,  and  not  on 
us.  In  the  Jewish  church,  of  which  our  Lord 
was  by  circumcision  a  member,  the  right  of  little 
children  to  a  place  within  the  fold  had  always 
recognition.  We  reason  that,  had  our  Lord  in- 
tended, in  the  founding  of  his  Church,  to  depart 
from  so  firmly  established  a  precedent  or  to 
withdraw  so  ancient  a  privilege.  He  certainly 
would  have  said  so  in  unmistakable  terms.  In 
this  recognition  of  the  great  law  of  continuity, 
churchmen  account  themselves  to  be  in  harmony 
with  the  best  thought  of  to-day,  whether  in  the 
churches  or  without.  Surely  the  lambs  need 
the  shelter  of  the  fold  at  least  as  really  as  the 
sheep.  I  can  readily  understand  the  flat  denial, 
on  philosophical  grounds,  that  "  any  "  shelter  or 
resting-place  in  the  nature  of  a  fold  is  essential 
to  the   well-being  of  the   human  family.     But 


ECCLE8IA  MEDIATRIX.  39 

shepherds,  ancient  and  modern,  I  suspect,  would 
all  agree  that  if  any  one  portion  of  the  flock  more 
than  another  needed  and  had  a  right  to  the  protec- 
tion of  the  fold,  it  must  be  the  lambs.  I  recall 
the  little  folds  of  stone  that  dot  the  hillside  pas- 
tures of  the  Scotch  Highlands,  and  I  remember 
thinking,  as  I  looked  at  them,  how  very  hard  and 
cold  and  unattractive  they  appeared — how  it 
seemed  as  if  the  sheep  might  almost  as  well  be 
left  to  wander  about  among  the  stones  and  take 
their  chances,  as  seek  refuge  within  such  cheer- 
less walls.  And  so,  no  doubt,  it  seems  to  some  at 
times — probably  to  our  Baptist  friends  at  all 
times — as  if  the  Church's  nurture  of  children 
were  a  work  so  inadequately  performed  as  to 
make  it  almost  valueless.  And  yet  I  suspect  that 
in  those  poor  huts,  built  up  of  broken  bits  of  rock, 
the  life  of  many  a  little  creature,  brought  in 
from  the  driving  snow  or  the  chill  wind,  has  been 
kept  from  utter  perishing,  preserved  until  the 
passing  of  the  tempest — saved,  though  only  just 
saved.  Even  so,  while  we  can  see  easily  enough 
how  poorly  Christ's  ideal  of  what  his  sheepfold 
was  meant  to  be  is  carried  out  in  fact,  there  is 
still  ground  for  hope  that  even  under  the  most 
meagre,  the  most  utterly  inadequate,  administra- 
tion of  the  affairs  of  the  flock,  some  blessings  are 
attained  that  would  not  otherwise  have  been 
had,  some  shelter  extended  that  else  would  have 
been  missed,  and  that  the  fold  has  its  value. 


40  ECCLESIA  MEDIATRIX. 

Doctrine  and  polity  disposed  of,  there  remains 
the  matter  of  worship.  Churchmen  believe  that 
the  public  worship  of  Almighty  God  ought  to  be 
distinguished  from  the  ordinary  actions  of  our 
lives  by  a  special  regard  on  our  part  to  dignity 
and  reverence.  They  consider  that  if  beauty 
and  majesty  have  any  rightful  place  in  the  affairs 
of  men,  that  place  is  preeminently  to  be  sought 
in  the  sanctuary.  Hence  they  are  accustomed  to 
invest  their  worship  with  as  much  solemnity  as 
possible.  They  distinguish  between  what  is  ap- 
propriate to  private  devotion  and  what  belongs 
to  the  worship  of  the  great  congregation.  The 
temper  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  which  is 
the  churchman's  manual  of  worship,  is  alike  un- 
friendly to  tawdry  and  vulgar  showiness  in  cere- 
monial on  the  one  hand,  and  to  utter  bareness 
and  rawness  on  the  other.  A  "  lowly  pomp,"  a 
simple  majesty,  a  decent  reverence — these  make 
the  golden  mean  in  worship,  and  it  is  these  which 
it  is  the  aim  of  the  Prayer  Book  to  secure.  There 
is  the  less  need  of  my  dwelling  upon  this  depart- 
ment of  our  general  subject,  because  the  signs 
are  abundant  that  the  American  people  are  com- 
ing into  sympathy  with  Anglican  ways  of  looking 
at  the  matter ;  for  the  question,  How  shall  we 
worship  ?  is  one  that  is  answering  itself  before 
our  eyes  and  to  our  ears.  All  around  us  are  evi- 
dences, to  which  the  most  unwilling  can  scarcely 
be  blind,  that  the  architecture,  the  music,  the 


ECCLESIA  MEDIATRIX.  41 

commemorative  days  and  seasons,  and  the  ritual 
worship,  hitherto  associated  with  the  old  Church, 
are  meeting  with  more  or  less  acceptance  among 
our  fellow-Christians  all  about  us. 

And  I  note  this  in  no  sneering  or  bitter  spirit, 
but  simply  as  making  for  my  argument.  It 
ought,  I  think,  to  be  a  ground  of  gratitude  and 
satisfaction  to  every  right-minded  churchman  to 
observe  these  approaches,  ill-contrived  and  gro- 
tesque as  they  sometimes  are,  to  the  form  of  a 
worship  rich  and  full.  All  such  indications  of  a 
better  understanding  and  a  more  cordial  agree- 
ment among  Christians  are  to  be  welcomed  as 
possible  harbingers  of  an  abiding  peace.  More- 
over, it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  in  1888  the 
entire  Anglican  communion,  at  the  lips  of  its 
assembled  bishops,  pledged  itself  not  to  insist 
upon  uniformity  of  worship  as  a  condition  prece- 
dent to  church  unity. 

Here  I  rest  my  argument.  What  I  have 
claimed  for  the  Episcopal  Church  as  precious  in- 
heritances, making  for  unity,  are  these :  (a)  a 
simple,  straightforward  Creed,  (b)  a  reverent, 
heart-satisfying  worship,  and  (c)  an  ancient  polity, 
whereof  the  memory  of  man  runneth  not  to  the 
contrary.  Surely  this  is  a  happy  combination. 
Surely  the  American  people,  beset  on  the  one 
hand  by  the  solid  ranks  of  Koman  absolutism 
and  harassed  on  the  other  by  the  scattered  sharp- 
shooters of  the  liberal  camp,  may  well  think  twice 


42  ECCLE8IA  MEDIATRIX. 

before  refusing  to  accept  it  as  the  true  rallying 
point  of  a  nation  whose  life  is  still,  in  the  main, 
a  continuation  of  English  history.  Taking  the 
Christian  people  of  this  land  in  the  mass — and 
the  truest  definition  of  the  American  Church  is 
that  which  affirms  it  to  be  made  up  of  the  whole 
company  of  the  baptized  of  whatever  name);  it  is 
probably  true  of  its  several  divisions  that  no  one 
of  them  is  entirely  in  the  right  upon  all  points, 
and  no  one  of  them  upon  all  points  entirely  in 
the  wrong. 

It  is  clearly  desirable  that  those  who  are  more 
in  the  right  and  less  in  the  wrong  than  others 
should  come  to  the  front;  but  which  these  are 
can  be  known  only  by  the  test  of  time.  God,  by 
some  sifting  process  of  his  own,  will  ultimately 
sever  the  evil  from  the  good  and  manifest  his 
Church.  Meanwhile,  to  those  who  cannot  help 
thinking  that  the  line  taken  by  Episcopalians  in 
the  movement  for  the  promotion  of  church  unity 
has  savored  of  arrogance  I  would  commend  a 
single  thought.  Much  as  we  reverence  the  mem- 
ory of  those  stout  English  hearts  who  witnessed 
to  the  sincerity  of  their  convictions  by  crossing 
the  ocean  to  plant  what  they  accounted  a  purer 
faith  in  this  American  soil,  heartily  as  we  may 
respect  their  opinions  and  highly  as  we  may  honor 
their  judgment,  there  is  a  court  of  appeal  which 
has  a  still  stronger  claim  on  our  regard,  and  that 
is  the  English  race  spread  over  the  whole  world. 


ECCLESIA  MEDIATRIX.  43 

Let  US  not  forget  that  we  are  members  also  of 
that.  For  combined  mental  and  moral  and  bodily 
force  the  race  in  question  stands  confessedly  in 
the  foremost  rank  of  human  kind.  Now,  instead 
of  going  back  to  fight  over  again  the  half- 
forgotten  battles  of  two  centuries  ago,  instead 
of  disputing  about  the  relative  amount  of  injury 
endured  by  Puritans  under  Archbishop  Laud  on 
the  one  hand  and  by  churchmen  under  Oliver 
Cromwell  on  the  other,  is  it  not  the  more  philo- 
sophical and  every  way  the  better  course  for  us 
to  look  at  general  results  as  they  have  been 
reached  up  to  this  time,  and  to  consider  what 
they  suggest  ?  Doing  this,  we  find  the  fact  to  be 
that  more  people  of  English  stock  have  chosen 
to  abide  by  that  presentation  of  the  religion  of 
Christ  which  is  embodied  in  the  uses  and  methods 
of  the  Episcopal  Church  than  have  chosen  to  cast 
in  their  lot  with  any  other  single  body  of  be- 
lievers. In  other  words,  the  main  principles 
which  find  expression  in  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer  (I  speak  not  of  details)  are  the  main 
principles  upon  which  a  plurality  of  the  English- 
speaking  people  has  settled  down  as  the  result 
of  the  great  battle  with  Eome.  Can  we  be  fairly 
charged  with  disloyalty  to  American  traditions, 
if  we  lift  up  our  eyes  from  the  limited  horizon  of 
our  own  local  history  and  let  them  take  in  the 
far  wider  sweep  covered  by  the  experience  of  our 
race  ?     Or,  to  put  it  in  another  way,  is  it  likely 


44  ECCLESIA  MEDIATRIX. 

that  that  religion  will  prove  otherwise  than  help- 
ful to  the  souls  of  men,  of  which  it  can  be  said 
that,  more  than  any  one  competing  form  of  faith, 
it  has  commended  itself  to  the  mind  and  con- 
science of  the  world's  dominant  race  ?  Again  I 
ask,  Why  should  we  renew  the  controversies  of 
two  or  three  hundred  years  ago  ?  Let  the  dead 
bury  their  dead,  and  let  us  judge  matters  of  the 
living  present  on  their  own  merits,  unbiassed  by 
inherited  prejudice.  Most  of  us  consider  it  fool- 
ish on  the  part  of  a  portion  of  our  fellow-citizens 
annually  to  celebrate  the  battle  of  the  Boyne. 
Equally  idle  is  it  to  wrest  from  the  grave  the 
religious  enmities  of  the  days  of  the  Stuart  kings. 
The  Puritan  of  those  days  thought  the  Church- 
man arrogant  and  overbearing ;  the  Churchman 
thought  the  Puritan  crotchety  and  sour.  The 
Puritan  accused  the  Churchman  of  laxity  of 
morals ;  the  Churchman  retorted  with  the  charge 
of  hypocrisy  and  cant.  But  what  concern  have 
we  with  these  old  recriminations  ? 

The  objections  of  the  Puritans  to  the  Episco- 
pal Church  (I  mean  the  old,  the  original,  objec- 
tions) are  practically  outlawed  by  the  statute  of 
limitations.  Lapse  of  time  has  emptied  them  of 
their  force,  as  anybody  can  see  by  simply  read- 
ing for  himself  what  the  Presbyterians  had  to 
say  in  the  way  of  complaint  at  the  Savoy  Con- 
ference in  1662.  Some  of  the  objections  were 
trivial  at  the  start,  and  are  now  universally  ac- 


ECCLESIA  MEDIATRIX,  45 

knowledged  to  have  been  such.  Others  of  them 
came  from  the  connection  between  Church  and 
State,  which,  happily,  in  this  country  has  no  ex- 
istence. The  question  for  us  is.  Has  the  Episco- 
pal Church  of  to-day,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  large 
store  of  blessing  in  its  hands  for  the  people  of 
the  Eepublic?  For  one,  I  honestly  and  ear- 
nestl}^  believe  that  it  has ;  and,  so  believing, 
abide  in  charity  and  hope,  a  Churchman. 


III. 

WHY     NIKE     DIVINITY     SCHOOLS    IN 
TOKYO  ? 


III. 

WHY  NINE  DIVINITY  SCHOOLS  IN  TOKYO? 

At  the  start,  I  feel  bound  to  put  in  the  best 
justification  I  can,  for  having  anything  at  all  to 
say  on  the  subject  which  it  is  proposed  to  dis- 
cuss. When  a  foreigner  who,  pencil  and  "  pad  "  in 
hand,  has  traversed  so  much  of  the  United  States, 
east  of  the  Mississippi,  as  is  easily  reachable  by 
palace-car  in  a  month's  vacation,  returns  to  his 
own  land  and  proceeds  through  the  medium  of 
some  popular  monthly  to  give  his  countrymen 
trustworthy  information  with  respect  to  America 
and  its  inhabitants  in,  say,  three  thousand  words, 
leaded  type,  we  smile.  We  cannot  help  it.  Of 
how  much  sorer  condemnation  ought  he  to  be 
thought  worthy  who,  never  having  so  much  as 
set  foot  on  a  heathen  shore,  undertakes  to  in- 
struct his  fellow-Christians  as  to  the  prospects, 
perils  and  true  interests  of  foreign  missions ! 
'Not  that  my  convictions  with  respect  to  the 
question  involved  are  halting  or  unsettled  ;  not 
that  my  heart  is  not  in  it,  or  that  I  am  taking  up 
the  subject  in  a  purely  perfunctory  way  :  pray 
do  not  draw  any  such  inference  or  inferences 
from  this  deprecatory  preface.     I  only  wish  to 

49 


50      WHY  NINE  DIVINITY  SCHOOLS  IN  TOKYO  f 

have  it  distinctly  understood  that  I  speak  from 
an  avowedly  theoretical  point  of  view.  With 
respect  to  certain  propositions  bearing  upon  the 
matter  in  hand,  I  am  indeed  fully  persuaded  in 
my  own  mind;  but  who  am  I,  a  stay-at-home, 
that  I  should  presume  to  criticise  the  methods  of 
the  men  in  the  field,  I  who  have  never  done  any- 
thing for  the  cause  more  arduous  than  the  making 
of  an  address  or  the  taking  up  of  a  collection  ? 
But  I  do  not  intend  to  criticise  the  methods  of 
the  men  in  the  field,  not  I ;  what  I  really  desire 
to  criticise,  in  so  far  as  my  words  prove  to  be 
critical  at  all,  is  the  philosophy  of  missions  held 
and  propagated  by  brother  stay-at-homes,  to  wit, 
my  fellow-members  of  boards,  societies,  commit- 
tees and  the  like,  cis- Atlantic  and  cis-Pacific  peo- 
ple, every  one  of  them,  like  myself.  In  this  there 
will  be  no  presumption,  though  there  may  be  a 
large  incompetency. 

As  a  basis  of  fact  from  which  to  start  out 
upon  our  theorizing,  suppose  we  take  the  state 
of  things  ecclesiastical  now  existent  in  the  city 
of  Tokyo,  Japan.  Tokyo,  the  capital  of  the 
Mikado's  empire,  has  a  population  of  about  a 
million  and  a  half,  and,  therefore,  counts  as  one 
of  the  chief  cities  of  the  non-Christian  world. 
At  no  single  spot  on  the  earth's  surface  is  it, 
perhaps,  more  important  that  the  gospel  of  Our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  should  be  forcibly  and  per- 
suasively presented  than  in  Tokyo.    But  whether, 


WHY  NINE  DIVINITY  SCHOOLS  IN  TOKYO?     51 

as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  be  forcibly  and  persuasively 
presented  or  not,  it  is  at  least  multitudinously  set 
forth.  Nine  theological  schools,  representing  as 
many  conceptions  and  embodiments  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  are  there.  The  Eoman  Catholics 
have  a  seminary ;  the  Protestant  Episcopalians 
have  a  seminary ;  the  American  Presbyterians, 
North,  have  a  seminary  ;  the  Evangelical  Asso- 
ciates have  a  seminary  ;  the  Congregationalists 
have  a  seminary ;  the  Canadian  Methodists  have 
a  seminary ;  the  German  Evangelical  Protestants 
have  a  seminary ;  the  Disciples  of  Christ  have  a 
seminary ;  the  American  Baptists  have  a  semi- 
nary. 

It  sounds,  in  the  reading,  like  the  portion  of 
Scripture  appointed  for  the  Epistle  for  All  Saints' 
Day,  does  it  not  ?  And  yet  the  twelve  tribes 
there  numbered  enjoyed  a  coherence  and  a  certain 
unity  in  diversity,  to  which  these  rival  divinity 
schools  of  modern  Japan  can  lay  no  claim.  Nine 
centres,  and  nine  sorts  of  theological  instruction ! 
Think  of  it !  New  York,  twice  as  large  as  To- 
kyo, and  nominally  Christian  already,  gets  on 
with  fewer.  The  question  confronts  us,  is  such  a 
state  of  things,  or  is  it  not,  an  impediment  to  the 
progress  of  Christianity?  I  believe  that  it  is, 
and  I  proceed  to  give  my  reasons  for  such  be- 
lief, humbly  submitting  them  to  your  judgment 
and  discussion. 

To  state  first  the  lowest  consideration  of  all, 


52      WHY  NINE  DIVINITY  SCHOOLS  IN  TOKYO  f 

I  maintain  that  such  a  modus  vivendiy  for  it 
deserves  to  be  called  by  no  better  name,  is  un- 
economical, that  it  involves  a  ruinous  and  inex- 
cusable waste  of  force.  Whatever,  as  American 
citizens,  we  may  think  of  the  trusts,  so-called,  we 
can  scarcely  question  that  like  the  corporations, 
their  forerunners,  they  have  come  to  stay,  and 
they  stay  because  they  save.  The  law  of  parsi- 
mony, to  use  a  technical  phrase  of  the  schools, 
is  as  inexorable  in  the  social  sphere  as  it  is  in 
the  logic  of  research.  If  twenty  manufacturing 
plants  can  turn  out  all  the  structural  steel  that 
is  needed  for  a  given  market,  to  maintain  one 
and  twenty  is  a  mistake.  The  superfluous  plant 
counts  not  merely  as  zero,  but  as  a  negative 
quantity,  in  the  summing  up  of  results.  It  is 
not  only  not  a  gain,  it  is  a  loss. 

In  the  present  state  of  religious  thought  the 
world  over,  three  variant  presentations  of  Chris- 
tianity are  perhaps  inevitable,  though  even  this 
is  to  be  deplored ;  but  nine  is  three  times  three. 
The  three  irreconcilable,  or  apparently  irrecon- 
cilable, positions  are  that  of  the  Koman  Catholic, 
who  insists  upon  such  an  historic  continuity  as 
links  itself  indissolubly  to  the  Papal  See;  that 
of  the  Anglican  who,  equally  with  the  Koman 
Catholic,  emphasizes  historic  continuity,  but  who 
holds  that  it  can  be  secured  independently  of  the 
Latin  succession;  and  that  of  the  Protestant, 
pure  and  simple,  who  in  his  philosophizing  upon 


WHY  NINE  DIVINITY  SCHOOLS  IN  TOKYO?     53 

the  subject  attaches  to  historic  continuity  little 
or  no  value.  To  have  narrowed  down  the  almost 
countless  tints  and  shades  of  the  ecclesiastical 
spectrum  to  these  three  primary  colors,  is  no 
slight  gain,  for,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
Church  economist,  it  would  be  far  less  wasteful 
to  maintain  three  well-manned  Divinity  schools 
in  a  town  than  nine  poorly  manned  ones,  far 
more  gratifying  to  the  religious  sense  to  build 
and  to  behold  three  stately  churches  than  to 
establish  and  support  nine  puny  ones.  But  I 
hasten  to  get  away  from  this  phase  of  the  sub- 
ject, partly  for  the  reason  that  the  arguments 
pro  are  so  evident  and  the  arguments  contra  are 
so  feeble  that  to  do  more  than  simply  state  the 
case  is  a  waste  of  time,  and  partly  because  one 
cannot  help  feeling  that  the  dignity  of  the  whole 
discussion  is  lowered  by  permitting  money  con- 
siderations to  intrude.  Most  of  us  who  are  here 
gathered  were  yesterday  morning  reading  to  our 
several  congregations  the  seventeenth  chapter  of 
the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John.  How  it  would 
have  marred  the  sublimity  of  that  ardent  inter- 
cession had  there  occurred  in  it  the  faintest  ref- 
erence to  the  economical  advantages  likely  to 
ensue  upon  the  granting  of  the  prayer  "That 
they  all  may  be  one ! "  Why  prayed  He  that 
they  all  might  be  one  ?  Was  it  in  order  that  the 
balance-sheet  of  Christendom  might  make  a  bet- 
ter showing  ?    No,  nothing  like  that,  but  rather, 


54      WHY  NINE  DIVINITY  SCHOOLS  IN  TOKYO  f 

first,  that  there  might  be  the  joy  which  inheres 
in  unity  as  such.  "  That  they  all  may  be  one  as 
Thou  Father  art  in  me  and  I  in  Thee,  that  they 
also  may  be  one  in  us  "  so  becoming  sharers  in 
our  blessedness ;  and  then,  further,  in  order  that 
an  incredulous  world,  seeing  from  without  the 
beauty  of  a  house  at  unity  in  itself,  might  repent 
and  believe  and  enter  in.  All  very  different  this 
from  a  finance  committee's  budget.  Haste  we 
then  to  depart  out  of  those  precincts  of  the 
temple  where  the  money-changers  have  their 
tables,  and  to  get  a  little  nearer,  if  we  may,  to 
the  holy  place,  where  contacts  are  less  sordid, 
and  values  are  reckoned  according  to  the  shekel 
of  the  sanctuary. 

I  maintain  then,  secondly,  that  not  only  is 
the  denominational  method  of  administering  mis- 
sionary interests  uneconomical  but  that  it  is  also 
unapostolic.  All  effort  to  spread  the  Kingdom 
of  Christ  in  these  latter  days  professes  to  pattern 
itself  after  the  examples  and  precedents  of  the 
first  age.  What  Paul  essayed  to  do  and  did  as 
propagator  of  the  faith,  that  ought  we  also  to 
undertake.  What  Barnabas  accomplished,  that 
should  we  too  attempt.  What  Titus  found  effect- 
ive, that  must  we  duplicate.  Bravo !  But  are 
we,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  walking  in  the  footsteps 
of  Paul,  Barnabas  and  Titus  when  we  plant  our 
nine  divinity  schools  in  Tokyo?  Is  there  the 
slightest  hint  in  the  Book  of  the  Acts  of  the 


WHY  NINE  DIVINITY  SCHOOLS  IN  TOKYO?     55 

Apostles  that  those  men  did  things  in  that  way  ? 
I  shall  be  reminded  that  Paul  and  Barnabas  had 
a  sharp  contention,  and  possibly  the  "  tendency- 
theories  "  of  the  Germans  may  be  put  in  evidence 
against  me,  as  going  to  show  that  even  between 
Peter  and  Paul  there  was  not  that  cordial  coop- 
eration in  the  promotion  of  missionary  work 
which  might  have  been  desired,  but,  after  all  nec- 
essary concessions  and  allowances  shall  have  been 
made,  it  will  be  diflSicult,  I  fancy,  to  show  that 
anything  distantly  resembling  our  modern  multi- 
plex scheme  for  the  propagation  of  the  faith  ex- 
isted in  the  Apostolic  age.  The  "  sharp  conten- 
tion "  just  referred  to  did  not  result,  so  far  as  I  am 
informed,  in  any  such  scandal  as  the  setting  up  of 
rival  altars  in  the  same  town.  Barnabas  sailed 
for  Cyprus  and  Paul  went  journeying  through 
Syria  and  Cilicia.  It  was  unfortunate,  but  it  was 
not  schism.  The  Cypriots  and  the  Cilicians  did 
not  proceed  to  perpetuate  the  quarrel  by  endow- 
ing opposition  divinity  schools  in  one  of  the  cities 
of  the  Levant.  As  for  St.  Paul,  he  made  his 
views  upon  the  subject  of  sectarian  rivalry  so 
plain  in  his  first  letter  to  the  Corinthians  that  to 
cite  him  as  a  witness  in  favor  of  our  present 
method  of  prosecuting  missionary  work  would 
mean  taking  a  most  foolhardy  risk.  He  had 
heard  with  sorrow  that  there  were  divisions 
among  them, — so  he  wrote.  Some  of  Chloe's 
people  had  told  him  about  it,  and  he  was  deeply 


56      WHY  NINE  DIVINITY  SCHOOLS  IN  TOKYO? 

pained.  The  fact  that  a  group  of  them  had  done 
him  what  they  had  meant  to  be  the  honor  of 
naming  their  little  fragment  of  Corinthian  Chris- 
tianity after  him  did  not  help  matters  in  the 
least.  He  would  much  rather  they  had  not  done 
it.  To  have  them  all  speak  the  same  thing,  to 
have  them  all  perfectly  joined  together  in  the 
same  mind  and  in  the  same  judgment — if  they 
wanted  to  know  what  would  please  him,  that  was 
what  would  please  him.  They  must  not  imagine 
that  he  was  envious  of  Cephas  or  jealous  of 
Apollos — nothing  of  the  sort.  They  and  he 
were  fellow-ministers,  not  rival  leaders  of  hostile 
followings.  Let  the  Church  in  Corinth  realize 
that  it  was  the  Church  in  Corinth,  and  drop  this 
undignified  business  of  propagating  the  King- 
dom, earth-worm  fashion,  by  abscission.  Is  it 
likely,  I  ask,  that  a  man  who  could  thus  think 
and  write,  would,  if  he  were  alive  to-day,  look 
with  complacency  upon  the  spectacle  of  nine 
theological  schools  in  Tokyo  ?  And  yet  of  these 
nine  schools  there  is  probably  not  one  where  the 
professor  of  ecclesiastical  history  and  the  pro- 
fessor of  pastoral  care  would  not  gladly  unite  in 
testifying  that  of  all  the  men  who  have  ever 
lived,  the  one  whose  opinion  as  an  expert  in  the 
matter  of  missionary  enterprise  ought  to  have 
most  weight  was  St.  Paul. 

I  have  been  speaking  of  the  denominational 
method   of    promoting  foreign  missions  as  un- 


WHY  NINE  DIVINITY  SCHOOLS  IN  TOKYO?     57 

economical  and  unapostolic.  It  remains  that  I 
speak  of  it  as  unstatesmanlike.  Do  not  hastily 
charge  me  with  Erastianism  because  of  my 
making  this  consideration  the  climax  of  my  argu- 
ment. Freedom  is  one  of  the  great  gifts  of 
Christ,  and  it  is  his  gift  to  peoples  as  well  as  to 
individuals.  How  to  build  up  in  heathen  lands  a 
strong,  self-respecting,  well-compacted,  beneficent 
national  life,  this  is  a  problem  not  unworthy  of 
the  best  thought  and  effort  of  the  Christian 
Church.  Great  efforts  are  making  nowadays 
throughout  Christendom, — have  been  making  for 
a  century  and  more,  to  exalt  the  secular  State. 
We  are  assured  that  the  time  has  come  for  strip- 
ping from  the  framework  of  civil  administration 
the  last  fragment  of  the  drapery  of  religion. 
Let  not  a  fringe  or  a  tassel  remain.  But  what  if 
it  should  turn  out,  upon  closer  investigation,  that 
religion  instead  of  being  only  the  drapery,  is 
really  a  part  of  the  very  flesh  and  bones  of  that 
organism  we  call  the  State?  What  if  a  more 
careful  analysis  of  the  constitutions,  written  or 
unwritten,  of  the  foremost  nations  of  the  world, 
should  make  evident  the  fact  that  these  are  all 
of  them  inwrought  with  and  elaborated  out  of 
ideas  essentially  religious  ?  When  a  State  votes 
to  abolish  the  distinction  between  right  and 
wrong,  and  deliberately  asserts  the  non-binding 
character  of  contracts,  then,  but  not  till  then, 
will  it  have  earned  a  right  to  the  title  atheistic. 


58      WHY  NINE  DIVINITY  SCHOOLS  IN  TOKYO  f 

Without  such  recognitions  as  those  which  I  have 
just  named,  unity  in  a  State  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, the  forms  of  government  may  for  a  time  be 
maintained  by  force,  but  real  oneness  there  is  not 
and  cannot  be.  Well  then,  if  it  be  true  that  re- 
ligious ideas  are  and  must  necessarily  be  a  prime 
ingredient  in  the  mortar  which  cements  the 
foundation-stones  of  States,  is  it  not  supremely 
important  that  the  character  and  quality  of  those 
ideas  should  be  of  the  best?  If  regenerated 
China  and  Japan  and  India  are  eventually  to  be 
built  up  into  great  self-governing  powers,  if  they 
are  to  become  nations  in  the  best  sense,  have  we 
of  the  West  no  interest  in  the  sort  of  religion 
that  shall  enter  into  the  primary  structure  of 
their  governmental  system,  the  bed-rock  of  their 
constitutions  ?  Of  course  we  have.  The  English 
liberationists  talk  of  sloughing  off  the  Church 
from  the  State  as  if  it  were  the  simplest  thing  in 
the  world,  but  when  the  time  for  disestablish- 
ment comes,  it  will  probably  be  discovered  that 
in  the  formation  and  the  unifying  of  what  we 
now  know  as  England  the  Christian  Church  had 
priority  of  all  other  forces,  and  helped  more  than 
all  other  forces  to  bring  the  end  to  pass.  But 
that  was  because  in  those  days  the  impact  of  the 
Christian  Church  upon  the  disordered  life  of  man 
had  the  telling  power  which  unity  confers.  Let 
the  Christian  Church  of  the  present  speak  with 
one  voice  to  the  peoples  now  in  ferment  over  the 


WHY  NINE  DIVINITY  SCHOOLS  IN  TOKYO?     59 

question,  What  shall  our  civil  structure  be? 
Out  of  what  sort  of  material  shall  we  build  up 
the  civilization  of  the  future  ?  and  there  will  be 
results  the  like  of  which  no  "  European  concert  " 
has  so  far  been  able  to  effect.  It  is  said,  Oh,  you 
need  not  worry  over  the  demoralizing  effect  of 
sectarian  Christianity  upon  the  heathen  mind. 
They  are  used  to  that  sort  of  thing  in  their  own 
religions,  they  have  been  sect-ridden  for  genera- 
tions, they  are  accustomed  to  it,  and  therefore 
they  expect  it. 

I  asked  a  highly  intelligent  Parsee  woman 
whom  I  was  privileged  to  meet  the  other  day, 
whether  this  were  really  so.  She  replied,  in 
substance,  that  doubtless  the  statement  was  cor- 
rect so  far  as  the  unintelligent,  low-caste  part  of 
the  population  were  concerned,  but  that  the 
thinkers  and  scholars  among  the  orientals  met 
such  arguments  with  a  sneer.  "  Compose  your 
own  differences,"  they  would  say,  "  before  j^ou 
come  to  us  with  the  offer  of  a  new  religion. 
When  you  can  agree  among  yourselves  as  to 
what  you  really  mean,  we  will  listen  and  not  till 
then."  Can  we  wonder  at  the  rebuff  ?  Would 
not  this  be  our  own  primary  answer  to  nine 
angels  from  heaven  preaching  to  us  nine  other 
gospels  than  the  one  first  delivered  ?  It  is  a 
makeshift  apologetic  which  seeks  to  justify  the 
coat  of  many  colors  in  which  we  approach  the 
heathen  by  urging  that  we  need  not  fear  causing 


60      WHY  NINE  DIVINITY  SCHOOLS  IN  TOKYO  f 

scandal  among  people  as  rainbow-hued  as  our- 
selves. 

You  say,  But  what  is  the  remedy  ?  I  answer, 
No  man  knows  certainly.  It  is  ground  where 
we  must  feel  our  way  in  patience,  in  courage  and 
in  humility.  Only  this  I  would  like  to  urge, 
namely  that  we  bend  all  our  energies  (and  by 
"  we "  understand  all  people  in  this  land  who 
have  named  the  name  of  Christ  and  who  believe 
in  missions),  that  we  bend  all  our  energies  to  the 
building  up  in  Asia,  and  so  far  as  practicable  in 
Africa,  united  native  churches  conterminous  geo- 
graphically with  the  areas  held  together  under 
definite  civil  sovereignties.  This  will  mean  grant- 
ing to  the  missionaries  in  the  field  a  much  larger 
freedom  of  action  than  has  been  hitherto  con- 
ceded to  them,  and  w^ill  also  mean,  by  parity  of 
reasoning,  a  greater  curtailment  of  the  powers 
of  "  boards  "  and  "  committees  "  than  is  likely  to 
be  quite  acceptable  to  the  members  of  the  same. 
But  the  question  is  not,  How  may  we  swell  the 
volume  of  the  Annual  Eeport  ?  The  question 
is,  How  may  we  most  quickly  win  the  world  for 
Christ  ? 


rv. 

A  COSMIC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 


lY. 

A   COSMIC   VIEW   OF    THE  ATONEMENT. 

We  have  to  do  with  that  great  doctrine  of 
which  the  Gospel  is  a  synonym,  the  Eucharist  a 
paraphase,  and  the  Cross  a  sign. 

Shall  I  begin  by  formulating  it  ?  Such  might 
seem  to  be  my  obvious  duty  as  a  participant  in 
this  discussion,  for  of  all  the  vain  uses  to  which 
the  mind  may  lend  itself,  none  is  vainer  than  de- 
bate over  an  ambiguous  thesis.  And  yet,  how 
shall  any  man  of  his  own  motion,  and  out  of  his 
own  head,  venture  to  do  what  "Holy  Church 
throughout  all  the  world"  has  never  done — 
namely,  to  set  forth,  in  precise  theological  terms, 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  Mi- 
nute definitions  of  the  dogma  there  have  been 
without  number,  some  of  them  backed  by  more, 
some  by  less,  of  recognized  authority,  but  no- 
where, save  in  the  few  broken  words,  "  Who  for 
us  men,  and  for  our  salvation  came  down  from 
heaven,"  "was  crucified  for  us  under  Pontius 
Pilate,"  "  suffered,"  "  was  buried  " — nowhere 
save  here  can  the  voice  of  the  Church  universal 
be  justly  said  to  have  set  forth  any  credenda  of 
Atonement. 

63 


64         A   COSMIC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

In  making  our  estimate  of  the  doctrine,  there- 
fore, and  attempting  our  statement  of  it,  the  first 
resort  must  be  to  the  words  of  Christ  and  His 
apostles ;  the  second  to  such  sources  of  light  as 
the  writings  of  the  great  interpreters,  understand- 
ing by  the  phrase  not  those  only  who  have  toiled 
laboriously  at  the  text  of  Holy  Scripture,  but 
those  as  well  whose  path  of  search  has  lain 
among  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart. 

Looking  earnestly  to  these  authorities  for  help, 
I  find  that  in  order  justly  to  apprehend  the 
Atonement  of  the  Son  of  God,  we  must  study  it 
both  as  a  process  and  as  an  act,  the  act  an  act 
accomplished,  the  process  a  process  still  unfold- 
ing ;  and  I  further  find  that  the  key  to  a  right 
understanding  alike  of  the  finished  act  and  of 
the  continuous  process  is  the  word  "reconcilia- 
tion." 

The  Westminster  revisers  have  done  good 
service  to  popular  theology  by  substituting  for 
"  atonement,"  in  the  only  passage  in  our  English 
New  Testament  where  the  word  occurs,  this 
more  intelligible  equivalent — "  reconciliation." 
I  say  "more  intelligible  equivalent";  for  al- 
though Atonement,  when  we  dismember  it,  is 
seen  to  be  nothing  else  than  at-one-ment,  or  the 
setting  at  one  of  those  who,  before,  were  set 
asunder,  yet  so  accustomed  have  we  become  to 
the  use  of  atonement  in  its  secondary  sense  of 
amends  or  expiation,  that  the  meaning  which 


A   COSMIC   VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  65 

Tyndale  (the  reputed  coiner  of  it)  meant  the  word 
to  carry  to  the  eye  has  become  hopelessly  ob- 
scured. 

Look  now  at  reconciliation  as  such,  and  with  a 
careful  eye  to  seeing  just  what  it  presupposes, 
and  how  much  it  involves. 

Every  reconciliation  involves,  for  example, 
action  between  persons ;  and,  furthermore,  it 
presupposes  such  persons  to  have  been  originally 
friends.  To  speak  of  reconciling  two  conflicting 
statements,  or  of  being  reconciled  to  a  bereave- 
ment, is  to  use  language  of  metaphor.  Every 
genuine  reconciliation  is  a  personal  matter  ;  it  is 
the  coming  back  into  council  or  intercourse  of 
those  between  whom  the  social  tie  once  existed, 
but  who  are  held  by  it  no  longer. 

How  much  theologians,  if  they  would,  might 
learn  from  children  and  their  ways  !  The  first 
impulse  of  an  angered  child  is  to  assert  non- 
intercourse  against  the  playmate  who  has 
wronged  or  hurt  him.  "What  play  is  to  children, 
council  or  society  is  to  their  elders.  And  for 
two  men  who  have  mutually  forfeited  one 
another's  favor,  to  be  brought  back  into  society 
and  friendliness,  is  the  resumption  of  council  or 
reconciliation. 

This  is  reconciliation  looked  at  as  a  process, 
but  it  is  to  be  noted  that  in  every  such  process 
there  occurs  a  certain  culmination,  which  we  may 
name  the  reconciliatory  act.     To  this  act  there 


66  A   COSMIC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

may  have  been  much  that  led  up  ;  from  it  there 
may  be  much  to  follow  ;  nevertheless  we  do  dis- 
tinguish a  climax  in  the  process  as  definite  as 
that  moment  of  chemical  union  wherein  two  sub- 
stances hitherto  distinct  merge  into  a  product 
which  is  the  "  new  thing "  it  was  proposed  to 
make.  Time  was  needed  to  bring  the  two  sub- 
stances into  proper  contact ;  more  time  will  be 
needed  to  enable  the  one  new  substance  to  pass 
out  of  solution  into  visible  crystalline  form  ;  but 
in  the  moment  ( and  it  is,  even  to  the  eye  of 
science,  a  most  mysterious  moment ) — in  the 
moment  of  transformation  we  have  what  answers 
to  the  reconciliatory  act. 

Again,  every  reconciliation  of  whatever  sort, 
the  need  of  which  has  been  occasioned  by  a  fault 
or  wrong,  costs  suffering  ;  it  is  not  achieved  with- 
out pain  somewhere ;  nor  can  Ave  by  any  means 
be  certain  that  the  pain  or  the  suffering  in  a 
given  case  will  be  confined  to  that  party  to  the 
controversy  which  was  originally  to  blame. 
Even  in  the  most  conspicuous  instances  of  what 
we  call  free  forgiveness  there  exists  this  element 
of  cost.  The  forgiveness  is  "  free  "  in  the  sense 
of  being  voluntary,  not  in  the  sense  of  being  in- 
expensive. If  I  may  again  so  soon  recur  to 
analogies  drawn  from  the  natural  order,  I  would 
say  that  there  seems  to  lie  hidden  here  a  certain 
subtile  law  of  equivalence,  whereby  it  holds  good 
that  just  as  the  arrest  of  motion  develops  heat, 


A   COSMIC  VIEW  OF  THE  AT0NE3IENT.  67 

SO  the  sudden  checking  of  indignation  at  the  dic- 
tate of  love  engenders  suffering. 

Eeligious  teachers  who  recognize  no  sacrificial 
character  in  the  sufferings  of  Christ  are  fond  of 
bringing  up  in  evidence,  as  against  this  doctrine 
of  the  costliness  of  forgiveness,  the  parable  of 
the  Prodigal  Son. 

We  have  here,  it  is  urged,  at-one-ment  without 
a  trace  of  suffering  on  the  part  of  the  at-one- 
maker.  So,  indeed,  it  might  seem  were  no  ac- 
count to  be  taken  in  studying  the  parable  of 
those  pregnant  words  "  and  had  compassion." 
Yet  Ave  can  conceive,  can  we  not  ?  of  fathers 
who,  under  the  like  conditions,  would  have  had 
no  compassion;  and  the  distance  between 
these  two  attitudes  of  heart — the  compassionate 
and  the  compassionless — is  only  to  be  measured, 
I  submit,  in  units  of  self-sacrifice.  "  He  ran  and 
fell  on  his  neck  and  kissed  him."  There  we  have 
the  reconciliatory  act,  but  how  little  we  know  of 
its  accompaniments !  Possibly,  could  it  have 
been  given  us  to  look  into  his  face  as  he  thus 
went  to  meet  his  returning  penitent,  we  should 
have  discerned  there  a  momentary  likeness  to 
that  great  Keconciler  whose  visage  was  so  marred 
more  than  any  man.  Certainly  we  can  have  small 
respect  either  for  the  virility  or  for  the  father- 
liness  of  the  parent  who,  without  effort,  pardons 
the  child  who  has  outraged  the  family  honor. 
To  forgive  is  something  loftier  than  to  condone. 


68  A   COSMIC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

The  one  is  done  without  effort,  the  other  requires 
effort,  and  in  all  effort  there  is  an  element  of 
pain.  Yes,  it  is  a  law  of  ethics,  as  sharply  de- 
fined as  any  law  of  physics,  that  the  deeper  the 
injury  the  costlier  the  pardon. 

In  the  light  of  this  simple  analysis  of  reconcili- 
ation as  such,  look  next  at  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  the  Atonement,  and  see  how  large  it  is. 

We  began  by  assuming  that  a  true  reconcili- 
ation must  always  mean  an  at-one-ment  of  per- 
sons, not  of  abstractions,  not  of  attributes,  but 
of  persons.  In  the  eye  of  the  New  Testament 
teachers  God  is  personal  and  man  is  personal, 
and  between  God  and  man  personal  relations 
may  and  do  exist. 

The  drift  of  modern  thought  being  largely  in 
the  direction  of  belief  in  a  power  unseen,  to 
which  can  be  assigned  with  safety  only  the  twin 
attributes  of  strength  and  ingenuity,  we  need  not 
be  at  all  surprised  at  the  lofty  unconcern  with 
which,  to-day,  in  very  many  influential  quarters, 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  has 
been  set  aside.  Still,  when  we  consider  that  if 
"  personality  "  is  to  be  banished  from  the  vocabu- 
lary of  religion,  such  words  as  "  love,"  "  tender- 
ness," "  compassion,"  "  sympathy,"  "  forgiveness," 
must  be  fellow-exiles,  we  shall,  perhaps,  feel  all 
the  more  drawn  to  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
Atonement  for  the  very  reason  that  so  intensely 
personal  a  character  attaches  to  it. 


A   COSMIC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  69 

But  not  only  as  respects  this  entrance  into  it 
from  both  directions  of  the  element  of  personality 
does  the  Atonement  conform  to  our  standard  of 
what  a  reconciliation  ought  to  be  and  to  include ; 
we  are  further  to  observe  that  the  doctrine  takes 
for  granted  the  existence  of  a  primal  amity  be- 
tween God  and  man  antedating  the  alienation. 
Keconciliation,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  renewal, 
not  the  beginning  of  concord.  The  child  to 
start  with  is  in  the  father's  house,  or,  in  theolog- 
ical phrase,  there  lies  behind  original  sin,  original 
righteousness. 

God  creates  man  in  His  own  image,  and  the 
workmanship  is  pronounced  good.  But  man — 
how,  when  or  where,  the  traditions  of  his  race 
only  imperfectly  inform  us — fell  out  of  this  right 
relation.  Whether  in  this  world  or  in  some  other 
world  than  this,  we  cannot  certainly  know,  there 
came  to  pass  alienation,  a  break,  severance  be- 
tween the  spirit  that  is  in  us  and  the  God  who  is 
a  Spirit.  This  spoiling  of  the  fatherly  relation 
spoiled  also  of  necessity  the  brotherly  relation  as 
well,  so  that  there  grew  to  be  a  need,  not  only  of 
an  at-one-ment  between  God  and  man,  but  of  an 
at-one-ment  also  between  man  and  man. 

To  bring  to  pass  the  far-reaching,  all-embra- 
cing reconciliation  that  was  demanded,  the  initia- 
tive must  come  from  above ;  there  must  be  a 
motion  of  heaven  to  help  earth,  since  no  effort  of 
earth  to  scale  heaven  could  suffice.     It  was  need- 


70  A   C0S3IIC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

ful  that  the  power  of  God  should  be  present  to 
heal  so  great  a  hurt,  and  in  the  person  of  a  Son  of 
God  it  came. 

But  not  without  suffering  could  the  end  be 
brought  to  pass,  and  suffering  on  that  side  where 
no  blame  was.  The  Helper  who  consented  to  be 
born  into  this  lower  life  to  set  us  right  must 
needs  become  closely  acquainted  with  grief. 
Having  loved  His  own  that  were  in  the  world, 
He  must  love  them  to  the  very  end  of  loving — 
that  is,  to  the  death.  Hence  that  culmination  to 
which  the  gospel  writers  see  fit  to  give  up  so 
large  a  portion  of  their  story.  Surely,  they 
would  never  so  closely  have  concentrated  our 
attention  on  the  cross  had  not  the  death  that  was 
died  there  been  indeed  a  "  precious  "  death. 

At  this  point  it  becomes  possible  to  bring  out 
clearly  the  contrast  already  hinted  at  between  the 
Atonement  as  a  process  of  reconciliation,  and  that 
special  crisis  in  the  Atonement  which  we  may 
name  the  reconciliatory  act,  the  Sacrifice. 
Failure  to  note  this  distinction,  and  to  allow  for 
it,  has  been  the  cause  of  much  perplexity  of 
mind. 

The  Atonement,  in  the  largest  sense,  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  a  movement  of  enormous  range  look- 
ing towards  unity.  But  just  as  the  fortunes  of  a 
long  campaign,  that  has  for  its  final  object  the 
pacifying  of  a  continent,  are  sometimes  seen  to 
hinge  upon    a  single  battle  fought  out  upon  a 


A   COSMIC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  71 

definite  field,  so  in  the  long  struggle  which  is  to 
end  in  the  unification  of  the  people  of  God,  we 
discern  a  decisive  hour. 

The  agony  and  passion  are  the  death-struggle 
out  of  which  our  Head  and  Leader  emerges  into 
peace.  '^  It  is  finished  "  ;  when  those  words  were 
spoken  the  sacrifice  was  complete,  but  day  by 
day,  and  year  by  year,  and  century  by  century, 
and  age  by  age,  the  world  is  living  into  the 
reconciliation  that  was  then  made  secure. 

And  yet  in  our  efforts  after  clearness  let  us  be- 
ware of  trying  to  be  too  clear.  With  respect 
both  to  the  process  and  to  the  act  we  are,  and, 
under  the  limitations  of  this  life  present,  must 
always  be,  to  a  great  extent  agnostic.  Of  the 
process  we  know  not  when  it  began  or  when 
cometh  the  end.  Of  the  act  we  know  only  the 
revealed  side.  The  half  hath  not  been  told  us. 
Cloudland  is  charged  with  fire,  not  only  at  the 
moment  when  our  eyes  see  the  flash,  but  all 
through  the  progress  of  the  storm.  The  streak 
of  light  is  but  the  quick  and  passing  manifesta- 
tion of  an  energy  ever  present.  So  with  the 
Atonement.  We  see  the  altar,  we  see  the  victim, 
we  are  witnesses  to  the  death,  but  what  is  going 
on  beyond  that  darkened  sky  we  see  not. 
"  There  they  crucified  Him " — that  we  can 
understand.  It  is  an  event  in  time.  But  of  the 
mysterious  title,  ''  Lamb  slain  from  the  founda- 
tion of  the   world,"  who  shall  say  what  that 


72  A   COSMIC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT, 

means  ?     It  carries  us    out   into   the    un visited 
region  of  eternity. 

During  the  last  half  century  two  forces  have 
been  operative  in  Anglican  theology  to  depress 
the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  High  Church 
and  Broad  Church,  in  so  many  points  mutually 
antagonistic,  have  been  at  one  in  this,  that  they 
have  agreed  to  exalt  the  dogma  of  the  Incarnation 
above  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement.  The  In- 
carnation, we  have  been  told,  both  by  the  school 
of  Pusey  and  by  the  school  of  Maurice,  covers 
and  comprehends  the  Atonement  as  the  greater 
includes  the  less. 

Undoubtedly  the  Incarnation  has  this  larger 
reach,  if  by  the  Atonement  we  understand,  as  the 
Evangelicals  of  fifty  years  ago  seem  to  have  done, 
only  the  sacrifice  upon  the  cross,  only  the  recon- 
ciliatory  act.  But  if,  as  I  have  ventured  to  sug- 
gest, the  true  conception  of  the  Atonement  is 
that  which  sees  in  it  the  reconciliation  of  all  that 
is  discordant  in  the  universe  of  God,  it  will  fol- 
low that  instead  of  speaking  of  the  Atonement 
as  subsidiary  to  the  Incarnation,  our  wiser  course 
would  be  to  afiirm  that  the  Word  was  made  flesh 
and  dwelt  among  us  in  order  that,  in  the  ful- 
ness of  times,  God  might  reconcile  all  things  to 
Himself. 

I  proceed  to  state,  in  fewest  possible  words, 
some  of  the  difficulties  the  modern  mind  en- 
counters in  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  and 


A   C0S3nC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  73 

to  set  over  against  them  the  special  reasons  why, 
in  spite  of  the  difficulties,  the  doctrine  ought  to 
have  given  to  it,  in  our  teaching  and  preaching, 
greater  prominence  than  of  late  years  it  has  en- 
joyed. 

The  difficulties  may  be  classified  as  ethical, 
sentimental  and  historical. 

The  ethical  difficulty  finds  utterance  in  the 
familiar  question.  How  can  the  sufferings  of  an 
innocent  being  in  any  sense  pay  the  penalty  of 
another's  guilt  ?  This  ought  to  be  met  by  clearly 
marking  the  distinction  between  bearing  the 
penalty  and  bearing  the  burden  of  the  world's 
sin.  The  penalty  He  did  not  bear,  the  burden  He 
did.  Moreover,  we  are  to  remember  that  He 
suffered  in  two  capacities :  on  the  one  hand  as 
representing  the  Father,  on  the  other  hand  as 
representing  the  family.  We  are  habituated  to 
the  use  of  the  word  "  vicarious  "  in  connection  with 
the  Atonement,  but  have  we  duly  weighed  this 
thought,  that  Christ  is  vicar  of  God  as  well  as 
vicar  of  Man  ?  Vicariously  He  suffered  for  us 
through  the  keen  sense  of  shame  whereby  the  in- 
nocent member  of  a  dishonored  household  bears 
the  burden  of  his  brethren's  fault;  but  vicari- 
ously also  He  suffered  in  behalf  of  God  that  He 
might  give  us  the  supreme  proof  of  love.  This 
is  not  Patripassian  doctrine  ;  it  is  the  truth  which 
the  Patripassianist  misstates. 

The  sentimental  difficulty  is  felt  by  those  to 


74  A   COSMIC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

whom  any  recognition  of  a  tragic  and  awful  ele- 
ment in  religion  is  distasteful.  They  prefer  a 
Saviour  who  comes  by  water  only  to  one  who 
comes  by  water  and  blood.  The  answer  to  this 
is,  that  say  what  you  will,  and  do  what  you 
will,  human  life  is  tragic,  that  this  is  not  a  rose- 
water  world,  that  song-birds  and  rainbows  are  far 
from  exhausting  the  imagery  of  nature,  and  that 
a  religion,  in  order  to  meet  the  deeper  needs  of 
the  human  soul,  must  recognize  the  mystery  of 
pain,  must  tune  at  least  a  portion  of  its  music  in 
the  minor  key. 

The  historical  difficult}^  is  by  far  the  most 
formidable  of  all.  Assuming  the  development  of 
man  to  have  started  from  some  form  of  brute 
life,  the  anthropologist  insists,  and  with  logical 
cogency,  that  for  a  creature  so  originated  educa- 
tion rather  than  reconciliation  is  the  one  thing 
needful.  To  which  the  answer  is,  that  the  last 
word  on  evolution  has  not  been  spoken  and  is  not 
likely  to  be  spoken  for  a  long  while  to  come. 
Were  it  to  be  proved,  as  certainly  it  has  not  yet 
been  proved,  that  the  evolution  of  man  had  been 
an  unbroken  evolution  from  zero,  it  would  have 
to  be  conceded  that  in  such  a  process  atonement 
could  have  had  no  place.  But  what  if  the  evolu- 
tion of  man  on  earth  began,  not  with  zero,  but  at 
some  point  reached  by  the  way  of  a  previous  dev- 
olution? In  other  words,  what  if  the  begin- 
nings of  the  Atonement  had  their  rise  in  times 


A   COSMIC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT.  75 

and  amid  scenes  of  which  we  know  by  record  or 
by  tradition  absolutely  nothing  ? 

Over  against  the  difficulties,  set  now  the  strong 
points  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement. 

In  the  first  place,  it  stands  for  the  truth,  to 
which  I  just  made  reference,  that  there  is  that  in 
God  which  answers  to  what,  among  ourselves, 
we  call  "  the  heart."  The  human  mind  is  at 
present  deeply  engrossed  in  the  study  of  physical 
phenomena.  The  laws  that  concern  mass  and 
force  and  structure  are  studied  with  a  diligence 
unprecedented.  But  natural  science  has  as  little 
power  to  answer  as  it  has  permanently  to  divest 
of  interest  the  question.  Does  God  love  us  ?  It 
is  the  high  function  of  the  naturalist  to  report 
to  us  the  methods  of  the  Divine  intellect,  but 
what  we  really  most  desire  to  know  about  God 
is — Has  He  or  has  He  not  a  heart  ?  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  no  doctrine  has  ever  been  so  potent  to 
persuade  men  of  the  reality  and  of  the  fervency 
of  the  love  of  God  as  the  Christian  doctrine  of 
the  Atonement.  Yes,  fervency,  for  it  may  well 
reconcile  us  to  the  breakdown  of  some  of  the  old 
teleological  arguments,  if  we  consider  that,  after 
all,  the  God  of  Paley  and  of  the  Bridgewater 
Treatises  was  only,  at  best,  "  the  benevolent 
Deity,"  whose  proper  shrine  is  the  turf-altar,  and 
whose  only  eucharist  that  of  the  vineyard  and 
the  harvest-field.     This  was  not  enough. 

There  is  in  the  heart  of  man   the  longing 


76  A   COSMIC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

for  a  sort  of  love  towards  God  and  from  God, 
wholly  beyond  that  natural  affection  which  rain 
from  heaven  and  fruitful  seasons  evidence  on  the 
one  side  and  have  power  to  inspire  on  the  other. 
There  is  in  us  a  reaching  after  the  love  which 
"  many  waters  cannot  quench."  This  we  find  not 
"in  flower,  or  star,  or  insect's  wing,"  or  any- 
where, until  we  come  into  the  hallowed  area 
swept  by  the  light  from  the  cross.  None  save 
Christians,  and  of  them  none,  thus  far,  save  the 
elect  few,  have  ever  loved  God  passionately. 
Only  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Atonement 
can  beget  a  Wesley  or  a  Faber,  a  St.  Catharine 
or  a  St.  Theresa. 

Again  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  may  be 
said  to  deify  unselfishness. 

The  schoolmen  used  to  distinguish  between 
efficient  causes,  formal  causes,  and  final  causes ; 
but  it  is  most  noteworthy  that  in  the  sacrifice 
which  lies  at  the  heart  of  the  Atonement  these 
three  agree  in  one — unselfishness.  See  if  this  be 
not  true. 

By  an  **  efficient  cause "  we  understand  the 
force  that  brings  any  given  result  to  pass,  the 
spring  and  fount  from  which  a  consequence  has 
flowed.  What  is  the  efficient  cause  in  the  Atone- 
ment ?     Listen  to  the  voice  of  Jesus  Christ : 

"God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His 
only -begotten  Son  " — unselfishness. 

By  a  "formal  cause"   we    understand    that 


A   COSMIC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT,  77 

which  makes  a  thing  what  it  is,  differencing  it 
from  all  things  else — in  a  word,  its  law  of  being. 
What  is  the  formal  cause  in  the  Atonement? 
Hear  again  the  authoritative  words  of  Christ 
enunciating  the  law  of  sacrifice : 

"  Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground 
and  die,  it  abideth  alone,  but,  if  it  die,  it  bringeth 
forth  much  fruit  " — unselfishness. 

By  a  "  final  cause  "  we  understand  the  end  or 
ultimate  purpose  for  the  sake  of  which  a  thing  is 
done  or  suffered — in  a  word,  the  object  to  be 
gained.  What  is  the  final  cause  in  the  Atone- 
ment ?    Attend  to  the  thing  spoken  by  Paul : 

"  He  died  for  all,  that  they  which  live  should 
not  henceforth  live  unto  themselves  " — unselfish- 
ness. 

This  exhibition  of  the  Atonement  as  a  process 
which,  having  its  rise  in  the  unselfishness  of 
God,  moves  onward  to  the  accomplishment  of 
unselfishment  in  every  creature  of  God,  leads  me 
to  speak,  last  of  all,  of  the  dignity  which  the 
doctrine  imparts  to  the  life  of  man  upon  this 
planet  by  giving  it  dramatic  oneness.  Alone 
among  sacred  books,  the  Bible  supplies  us  with 
the  data  for  a  rational  and  coherent  philosophy 
of  history. 

Studied  from  the  standpoint  of  the  cross,  the 
drama  of  human  life,  with  its  store  of  struggle, 
sorrow,  guilt,  defeat  and  victory,  is  seen  to  have 
design,  an  ordered  movement,  an  assured  result. 


78  A   COSMIC  VIEW  OF  THE  ATONEMENT. 

To  the  non-Christian  thinker,  history  is  more 
like  the  endless  fairy-tale  which  one  child  tells 
another  in  the  twilight,  an  incoherent,  rambling 
narrative,  which  might  be  carried  on  forever  and 
not  be  finished,  or  broken  off  short  and  not  be 
spoiled. 

How  much  more  august,  and  for  that  very 
reason  how  much  more  probable,  the  Christian 
statement  of  the  case !  Earth  is  the  stage ;  to 
the  nations  have  been  assigned  their  parts ;  the 
action  centres  in  a  hero  whose  name  is  Son  of 
Man,  while  from  the  overhanging  edges  of  the 
world  looks  down  the  cloud  of  witnesses.  And 
so  "  the  riddle  of  the  painful  earth  "  is  read. 


Y. 

THE  STYLE  AND  TEMPEE  OF  THE  BOOK 
OF  COMMOJST  PRAYER. 


THE   STYLE   AND   TEMPEE   OF   THE   BOOK   OF 
COMMON   PEAYER. 

It  is  much  to  be  deplored  that  eulogists  of  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  are,  as  a  rule,  so  indis- 
criminate in  their  praise.  To  read  some  of  the 
encomiums  upon  our  "  incomparable  liturgy,"  one 
might  almost  infer  that  the  doctrine  of  verbal 
inspiration,  driven  from  biblical  precincts,  had 
taken  up  its  abode  in  the  Anglican  formularies 
of  worship. 

Of  course  there  are  inequalities  of  style  in  the 
Prayer  Book,  and  divers  varying  grades  of  liter- 
ary excellence.  What  student  acquainted  with 
the  history  of  the  book  could  expect  to  find 
things  otherwise  ?  As  well  go  through  the  Pitti 
and  the  UflHzi  affirming  that  all  the  Eaphaels  hap- 
pened upon  possessed  one  and  the  same  artistic 
value  simply  because  signed  by  the  same  hand ; 
as  well  insist  that  "  The  Surgeon's  Daughter " 
was  as  good  a  novel  as  "  Ivanhoe,"  or  "  Troilus 
and  Cressida  "  as  great  a  play  as  "  Hamlet,"  or 
"  The  May  Queen  "  as  fine  a  poem  as  the  "  Ode 
on  the  Death  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,"  as  try 
to  make  it  out  that  in  point  of  loftiness,  dignity, 

81 


82  THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER. 

and  fervor  all  portions  of  the  Common  Prayer 
are  of  a  piece.  The  General  Exhortation  and 
the  General  Confession,  for  instance,  stand  next 
to  each  other  in  the  Offices  of  Morning  and 
Evening  Prayer;  they  are  so  near  that  they 
actually  touch ;  yet  is  the  one  as  far  removed 
from  the  other  in  style-value  as  copper  is  from 
gold. 

The  notes  of  the  style  of  the  Common  Prayer 
are  three, — simplicity,  majesty,  and  tenderness. 
Of  course  I  do  not  mean  that  we  everywhere 
find  these  characteristics  conjoined ;  it  is  not  to 
be  expected  or  desired  that  we  should ;  all  I  say 
is  that  they  are  noticeable  features  when  we  look 
at  the  book  as  a  whole  with  a  view  to  appraising 
its  value  and  fixing  its  place.  The  simplicity  is 
almost  everywhere  present;  the  majesty  comes 
out  whenever  it  is  a  question  of  addressing  the 
Throne  ;  the  tenderness  reveals  itself  in  all  that 
is  said  of  God's  disposition  towards  the  penitent 
soul,  and  in  every  reference  to  the  sorrows  and 
calamities  of  the  mortal  lot. 

The  simplicity  of  the  language  may  be  ac- 
counted for  on  more  grounds  than  one.  A  chief 
reason  for  putting  forth  the  book  at  all  had  been 
the  demand  for  a  worship  which  the  common 
people  could  understand.  As  in  the  case  of  the 
translated  Bible,  the  object  was  to  get  as  far 
away  from  the  Latin  tongue  as  possible.  This 
explains,  perhaps,  the  marked  contrast  as  respects 


THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRATER.  83 

the  proportion  of  Saxon  to  Latin  derivatives,  be- 
tween the  Bible  and  Prayer  Book  on  the  one 
hand,  and  on  the  other  not  a  few  of  the  master- 
pieces of  English  letters  produced  at  the  same 
period.  The  secular  authors,  even  though  wri- 
ting English,  were  not  wholly  loath  to  have  the 
gold  thread  of  their  latinity  reveal  itself  pretty 
freely  in  the  texture  of  their  homespun;  but 
Tyndale  and  Cranmer  had  another  aim  in  view 
altogether,  being  more  anxious  that  the  plough- 
boy  should  understand  them  than  that  the  ear  of 
the  university  don  should  detect  nothing  amiss. 
Take  as  an  illustration  the  following  prayer  from 
the  Matins  of  Edward  the  Sixth's  First  Book.  I 
have  chosen  it  almost  at  random  : — 

"  O  Lord,  our  heavenly  Father,  Almighty  and 
everlasting  God,  which  hast  safely  brought  us  to 
the  beginning  of  this  day ;  defend  us  in  the 
same  with  Thy  mighty  power ;  and  grant  that 
this  day  we  fall  into  no  sin,  neither  run  into  any 
kind  of  danger ;  but  that  all  our  doings  may  be 
ordered  by  Thy  governance  to  do  always  that  is 
righteous  in  Thy  sight,  through  Jesus  Christ  our 
Lord." 

Here  out  of  seventy-one  words,  only  three — 
namely,  *' defend,"  ''ordered,"  and " governance " 
— are  Latin  derivatives.  It  is  probable  that  an 
analysis  of  the  whole  book  would  show  a  similar 
ratio. 

Another  guarantee  of  simplicity  was  supplied 


84  THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PBAYEB. 

by  the  healthy  realism  characteristic  even  of 
those  corrupt  forms  of  devotion  which  Cranmer 
and  his  colleagues  had  before  them  as  working 
models  in  their  task  of  reconstruction.  Super- 
stitious as  many  of  the  old  formularies  were,  they 
could  not  be  charged  with  indifference  to  things 
in  the  concrete.  Hence  we  find  throughout  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  a  careful  avoidance  of 
figurative  speech,  and  a  jealous  clinging  to  what 
is  substantive  and  real.  An  exception  should  be 
made  with  respect  to  such  imagery  as  has  the 
sanction  of  the  Bible  writers, — though  even  this 
is  very  sparingly  employed ;  but  of  metaphors 
not  Scriptural,  there  are,  in  the  most  ancient  and 
best-beloved  portions  of  the  book,  very  few  in- 
deed. The  Litany,  which  a  justly  honored  and 
beloved  Presbyterian  divine,  the  late  learned 
Dr.  Shedd,  once  told  me  he  regarded  as  the  most 
wonderful  compend  of  intercessory  prayer  to  be 
found  in  the  whole  range  of  devotional  litera- 
ture,— the  Litany  is  devoid  of  figurative  language 
altogether.  It  might  seem,  at  first,  as  if  this 
banishment  of  trope  and  figure,  simile  and  meta- 
phor, must  involve  a  costly  sacrifice  of  beauty, — 
but  no,  that  does  not  follow.  Massiveness  has  a 
beauty  of  its  own.  The  interior  of  Durham 
Cathedral  is  severe,  profoundly  so  ;  nothing  could 
be  further  removed  from  those  tremendous  pillars 
and  those  solemn  Norman  arches  than  the  airy 
grace  of  the  churches  which  exemplify  the  deco- 


THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER.  85 

rated  Gothic  of  a  later  period ;  and  yet  it  never 
occurs  to  anybody  to  speak  of  Durham  as  lacking 
the  element  of  beauty.  It  is  a  grave  and  serious 
beauty  which  reveals  itself  under  that  high  vault, 
but  it  is  beauty.  A  liturgy  which  is  to  live  on, 
from  generation  to  generation,  must  possess  the 
sort  of  beauty  which  wears.  What  is  fascinating 
upon  occasion  does  not  necessarily  meet  our  every- 
day need.  Eloquent  prayers,  tense  with  imagina- 
tive thought  and  vibrant,  in  a  good  sense,  with 
poetic  feeling,  are,  as  a  rule,  eloquent  only  for 
once.  Try  to  repeat  them  and  they  pall.  The 
most  marvelous  burst  of  eloquence  I  ever  listened 
to  in  my  life  was  the  extemporaneous  prayer 
made  by  Phillips  Brooks  at  the  Harvard  Com- 
memoration in  1865.  Even  the  splendors  of 
Lowell's  Ode  paled,  for  the  moment,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  that  flame.  It  was  the  very  utterance  for 
which  the  great  occasion  called.  But  it,  or  any 
adaptation  or  paraphrase  of  it,  would  be  simply 
preposterous  in  a  liturgy.  You  may  reply  that 
if  this  be  so,  its  being  so  is  the  condemnation  of 
liturgies.  Yes,  perhaps  so,  if  the  conditions 
which  made  that  prayer  possible  could  be  counted 
upon  to  reproduce  themselves  every  Sunday  of 
the  fifty-two  that  punctuate  a  year,  and  you  were 
sure  of  having  a  poet-orator  in  every  pulpit. 

I  spoke  of  majesty  of  speech  as  characterizing 
more  particularly  those  portions  of  the  Common 
Prayer  in  which  we  are  invited  to  draw  near  to 


86      THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PBAYEB, 

God  for  purposes  of  adoration.  I  had  especially 
in  mind  the  usage  which  there  obtains,  of  linking 
some  attribute  with  the  name  of  Deity  in  the 
opening  sentence  of  every  prayer,  and  thus  im- 
parting a  certain  sublimity  to  the  very  act  of 
crossing  the  threshold  of  worship.  *'  O  God,  who 
showest  to  them  that  are  in  error  the  light  of  Thy 
truth ; "  "  O  Almighty  God,  who  alone  canst  order 
the  unruly  wills  and  affections  of  sinful  men ;  '^ 
"  O  God,  who  never  failest  to  help  and  govern 
those  whom  Thou  dost  bring  up  in  Thy  steadfast 
fear  and  love  ; "  "  O  God,  who  hast  prepared  for 
those  who  love  Thee  such  good  things  as  pass 
man's  understanding," — these  are  illustrations  of 
what  I  mean.  We  shall  all  of  us  agree  that  there 
is  a  quiet  dignity  about  this  method  of  approach- 
ing the  Most  High  in  worship  which,  without 
argument,  commends  itself  to  a  reverential  mind. 
But  not  only  in  the  prayers, — majesty  is  the  distin- 
guishing mark  of  the  praises  as  well.  The  Te 
Deum  is  majestic  :  "  We  praise  Thee,  0  God,  we  ac- 
knowledge Thee  to  be  the  Lord."  The  Gloria  in 
excelsis  is  majestic :  "  O  Lord  God,  Lamb  of  God, 
Son  of  the  Father,  that  takest  away  the  sins  of 
the  world,  have  mercy  upon  us."  The  Ter  sanctus 
is  majestic :  "  Holy,  Holy,  Holy,  Lord  God  of 
Hosts,  heaven  and  earth  are  full  of  Thy  glor3^ 
Glory  be  to  Thee,  O  Lord,  Most  High." 

The   other  characteristic  named  was  tender- 
ness.    The  tone  of  the  Prayer  Book  in  its  ap- 


THE  BOOK  OF  C03IM0N  PRAYER.  87 

preaches  to  the  human  soul  is  gentle,  winning, 
compassionate.  There  is  nothing  anywhere  be- 
tween the  covers  that  even  remotely  resembles 
gush.  There  is  no  shilly-shallying  with  the  awful 
fact  of  sin.  In  the  office  for  the  visitation  of  the 
sick  there  is  no  suggestion  that  opiates  are  a  good 
substitute  for  a  quiet  conscience,  and  in  the  office 
for  the  visitation  of  prisoners  the  words  addressed 
to  criminals  under  sentence  of  death  are  in  re- 
freshing contrast  to  the  maudlin  sentimentalism 
which,  with  a  strange  perversity,  too  often  seeks 
to  divert  sympathy  from  the  person  wronged  and 
to  transfer  it  to  the  unrepentant  doer  of  the 
wrong.  For  tenderness  of  this  morbid  type,  the 
Prayer  Book  has  no  indulgence  ;  but  towards  all 
who  sorrow,  and  for  all  who  "  suffer  according  to 
the  will  of  God,"  its  tone  is  everywhere  gentle, 
sympathetic,  pitiful,  compassionate.  It  not  only 
asks  that  the  merciful  Lord  will  strengthen  those 
who  do  stand,  it  pleads  with  Him  to  comfort  the 
weak-hearted  and  to  raise  up  those  who  fall ;  it 
remembers  all  who  are  in  danger,  necessity,  and 
tribulation,  all  sick  persons  and  young  children, 
the  prisoners  and  the  captives,  the  fatherless  and 
the  widowed,  and  all  who  are  desolate  and  op- 
pressed. Simplicity,  majesty,  tenderness, — ^yes, 
these  are  certainly  the  features  that  we  should 
wish  to  see  looking  out  upon  us  from  a  manual  of 
worship,  a  book  purporting  to  teach  us  how  to 
pray. 


88  THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER. 

Having  discussed  style,  we  pass  next  to  the 
more  difficult  question  of  doctrine.  What  is  the 
theology  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer? 
Pray  observe  that  this  is  a  matter  quite  apart 
from  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  Keligion.  The 
Thirty-nine  Articles  bear  an  important  doctrinal 
relation  to  the  Church  of  England  and  to  the 
American  Episcopal  Church  ;  but  we  are  not  dis- 
cussing these  Churches,  we  are  discussing  the 
Prayer  Book,  and  the  Articles  are  no  part  of  the 
Prayer  Book,  they  make  a  book  of  themselves. 
The  theology  of  the  Prayer  Book  must  be 
gathered  from  within  its  own  covers.  If  we  look 
there  to  find  a  system  of  theology  thoroughly 
well  bolted  and  riveted,  we  shall  look  in  vain ; 
but  this  is  by  no  means  an  admission  that  the 
language  of  the  formularies  is  that  invertebrate 
and  undogmatic  thing  which  some  would  like  to 
see  it  made.  Far  from  it ;  for  not  only  are  the 
ancient  creeds,  in  one  or  other  of  their  authenti- 
cated forms,  made  a  frequent  feature  of  worship, 
the  very  prayers  themselves  are  redolent  of 
dogma.  And  yet  it  is  rare  indeed  to  hear  any- 
body, except  an  extreme  liberal,  complain  of  the 
dogmatic  feature  of  the  Prayer  Book  worship  as 
a  grievance.  And  why  ?  Simply  because  the 
dogma  has  been,  if  I  may  be  allowed  to  coin  a 
word,  devotionalized.  In  liturgies,  as  elsewhere, 
much  depends  upon  the  way  of  putting  things. 
By  way  of  illustration,  suppose  we  take  some 


THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER.  89 

orthodox  statement  of  doctrinal  truth  and  lay 
alongside  of  it  a  devotionalized  form  of  the  same 
thought.  We  are  bent,  for  example,  upon  setting 
up  a  barrier  against  the  arch-heretic  Pelagius  and 
his  vicious  doctrine  of  human  merit.  Yery  well, 
here  is  one  way  of  doing  it,  the  systematic  way : 
"  Albeit  that  good  works,  which  are  the  fruits  of 
faith  and  follow  after  justification,  cannot  put 
away  our  sins  and  endure  the  severity  of  God's 
judgment,  yet  are  they  pleasing  and  acceptable 
to  God  in  Christ;  but  works  done  before  the 
grace  of  Christ  and  the  inspiration  of  His  Spirit 
are  not  pleasant  to  God."  This  of  course  throws 
the  mind  of  the  listener  into  a  critical  and  argu- 
mentative mood  at  once  ;  but  attend  to  the  same 
thought  in  the  attractive  form  in  which  it  comes 
wooing  us  through  the  lips  of  prayer  on  the 
Fifth  Sunday  after  Easter :  "  O  Lord,  from  whom 
all  things  do  come ;  grant  to  us  Thy  humble 
servants,  that  by  Thy  holy  inspiration  we  may 
think  those  things  that  are  good,  and  by  Thy 
merciful  guiding  may  perform  the  same,  through 
Jesus  Christ,  our  Lord." 

Most  will  agree,  I  think,  that  the  liturgical 
method  of  inculcating  the  truth  is,  for  the  ordi- 
nary lay  mind,  at  any  rate  ( and  the  laity  are 
much  in  the  majority ),  the  more  persuasive  of 
the  two.  I  do  not  for  a  moment  pretend  to 
affirm  that  the  Prayer  Book  is  always  equally 
felicitous    in    its   attempts  to  clothe  the  hard 


90  THE  BOOK  OF  C03IM0N  PRAYER. 

skeleton  of  dogma  with  the  warm  flesh  and  blood 
of  a  personal  devotion.  There  are  marked  ex- 
ceptions. The  opening  invocations  of  the  Litan}^, 
and  the  Proper  Preface,  so-called,  for  Trinity 
Sunday  in  the  Communion  Office  are  well-meant 
endeavors  to  fasten  the  Nicene  dogma  in  the 
affections  of  the  worshippers ;  but  the  same  end 
would  have  been  more  effectively  served,  and  the 
purposes  of  devotion  far  better  met,  by-a  few  quo- 
tations from  that  strangely  neglected  liturgical 
treasure-house,  the  Kevelation  of  St.  John  the 
Divine.  There  need  have  been  no  real  fear  that 
the  interests  of  Trinitarianism  would  suffer.  The 
Prayer  Book  is  Trinitarian  through  and  through, 
warp  and  woof.  You  would  have  to  put  it 
under  axes  and  hammers,  as  was  once  done  in 
Boston,  to  get  the  Trinitarianism  out  of  it. 

Again,  the  theology  of  the  Prayer  Book  is 
preeminently  a  biblical  as  contrasted  with  a 
systematic  theology.  In  saying  this  I  do  not 
mean  to  assert  that  the  Prayer  Book  is  always 
true  to  the  teachings  of  Holy  Scripture  ( though 
personally  I  believe  it  so  to  be),  for  that,  indeed, 
would  seem  too  much  like  begging  the  question ; 
but  what  I  mean  is  that  the  Prayer  Book  ever 
shows  itself  more  solicitous  that  its  utterances 
shall  square  with  the  utterances  of  the  proph- 
ets, the  apostles,  and  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
than  that  they  should  be  absolutely  con- 
sistent in  their  relations  to  one  another.     In  a 


THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PBAYEB.  91 

"  system,"  whether  of  theology  or  of  philosophy, 
the  great  point  is  to  avoid  self-contradiction. 
All  things  must  hang  together  logically ;  there 
must  be  no  broken  link  in  the  coat  of  mail,  no 
gap  between  gorget  and  cuirass  where-through 
the  point  of  sword  or  lance  may  pierce.  But  the 
Bible  writers  do  not  seem  to  have  felt  this  sort 
of  anxiety.  First  they  stated  one  truth,  and 
then  they  stated  another ;  and  the  listener  was 
left,  (notably  in  the  case  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  the  most  divine  of  all  discourses  upon 
ethics,)  to  discover  for  himself  the  articulation  of 
the  truths  enunciated.  If  they  seemed  to  him 
contradictory,  so  much  the  worse  for  him. 

I  have  already  once  referred  to  the  doctrine  of 
merit  by  way  of  illustration ;  let  it  again  serve 
us  as  a  case  in  point.  What  a  very  Arminian 
sound,  to  speak  theologically,  has  the  following 
sentence  from  the  Apocrypha  which  the  Prayer 
Book  orders  to  be  read  at  the  Offertory,  or  Alms- 
gathering:  "Be  merciful  after  thy  power,  if 
thou  hast  much  give  plenteously,  if  thou  hast 
little  do  thy  diligence  gladly  to  give  of  that 
little,  for  so  gatherest  thou  thyself  a  good  re- 
ward." Here  there  seems  to  be  a  very  evident 
eye  to  some  recompense  for  our  deserts.  On  the 
other  hand,  Calvin  himself  would  have  been  sat- 
isfied with  the  predestinarian  import  of  a  petition 
which  occurs  in  the  very  same  office,  later  on, 
where  the  order  of  request  is  that  the  suppliants 


92  THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER. 

may  be  given  grace  to  do  such  good  works  as 
have  been  ''  prepared  "  for  them  "  to  walk  in." 

Another  striking  instance  of  the  Prayer  Book's 
utter  indifference  to  logical  consistency,  when  it 
is  a  question  of  faithfully  reflecting  the  teach- 
ings of  Holy  Scripture,  is  afforded  by  its  escha- 
tology.  With  respect  to  the  great  central  verity 
of  the  resurrection  to  eternal  life,  there  is  no  un- 
certain sound ;  but  as  to  lesser  points,  and  es- 
pecially as  to  the  temporal  relations  between 
death  and  the  judgment,  we  find  in  the  Prayer 
Book  the  same  ambiguity  that  perplexes  us  in  the 
New  Testament.  How  much  better  this  than  an 
attempt  to  be  wise  above  what  is  revealed ! 

It  remains  to  say  something  about  the  sacra- 
mental aspects  of  the  theology  of  the  Common 
Prayer.  It  is  here  that  we  come  into  closest  con- 
tact with  that  great  doctrinal  quarrel  which  un- 
derlay the  whole  sixteenth  century  movement. 
On  its  political  side,  the  Eeformation  was  a  pro- 
test against  absolutism  centred  at  Kome ;  on 
its  doctrinal  side,  it  was  a  protest  against  an 
overstrained  and  exaggerated  sacramental  system, 
or,  as  Froude  bluntly  puts  it,  an  assertion  on  the 
part  of  the  laity  of  their  own  intrinsic  spiritual 
rights. 

The  attitude  of  the  Prayer  Book  towards 
Roman  error  under  this  head  is  not  so  much  po- 
lemical as  it  is  independent  and  self-respecting. 
Those  were  not  the  days  when  Anglicans  waited 


THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER,  93 

with  bated  breath  to  hear  what  Kome  might  have 
to  say  as  to  the  validity  of  their  orders.  The 
men  who  framed  the  Prayer  Book  had  a  mind  of 
their  own,  and  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  cross 
the  mountains  to  search  out  what  was  Catholic  and 
primitive.  It  is  true  that  a  slight  panicky  feel- 
ing betrays  itself  in  the  famous  suffrage  of  King 
Edward's  Litany,  "From  the  tyranny  of  the 
Bishop  of  Eome  and  all  his  detestable  enormities, 
Good  Lord  deliver  us  "  ;  but  this  is  offset  by  the 
courage  and  good  sense  which  Elizabeth  showed 
in  expunging  the  supersensitive  clause  while  as 
yet  the  embers  of  the  fires  which  her  sister  had 
kindled  at  Smithfield  were  scarcely  cold. 

The  unquestioned  prominence  which  the  Book 
of  Common  Prayer  assigns  to  sacramental  doc- 
trine and  sacramental  practice  is  not  adequately 
explained  by  the  hypothesis  of  a  sort  of  half-way 
covenant  with  Kome.  This  is  a  method  of  deal- 
ing with  the  fact  more  popular  than  profound. 
Journalists  and  litterateurs  may  be  pardoned  for 
taking  that  view,  but  serious-minded  theologians 
will  scarcely  be  content  with  it.  The  true  expla- 
nation of  the  emphasis  that  the  Prayer  Book  lays 
upon  sacramental  obligation  and  sacramental 
privilege  is  to  be  found  in  a  conviction  towards 
which  many  independent  lines  of  present-day 
thought  converge ;  namely,  the  conviction  that 
religion  is,  after  all,  far  more  an  affair  of  per- 
sonal allegiance  and  personal  intercourse  than 


94  THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER, 

it  is  the  acceptance  of  a  syllabus  of  sacred  truths, 
however  well  authenticated  or  accurately  dove- 
tailed. St.  Paul's  aspiration  was  not  "  that  I 
may  know  about  Him,"  it  was  "  that  I  may  know 
Him." 

It  might  seem  to  be  expecting  a  great  deal  of 
a  Church  to  ask  it  to  retain  within  its  confines 
two  such  contrasted  and  apparently  irreconcil- 
able minds  as  Pusey  and  Maurice.  Yet  each  of 
these  two  men  is  found  exalting  to  a  very  lofty 
place  in  his  religious  system  the  sacrament  of  the 
body  and  blood  of  Christ.  What  worthier  ex- 
planation can  we  frame  for  the  occurrence  of  so 
unlooked-for  a  truce  between  hostile  tempera- 
ments than  to  suppose  that  both  men  have  dis- 
covered the  emptiness  of  mere  intellectuality  in 
religion,  and,  weary  of  what  one  of  them  was  so 
fond  of  stigmatizing  as  "  a  Gospel  of  notions," 
are  fleeing,  hungry  and  thirsty,  to  the  presence 
of  the  personal,  the  true,  the  living  Christ. 

The  truth  is,  that  so  far  from  carrying  any 
taint  of  Eoman  error,  the  Prayer  Book  Office  for 
the  Holy  Communion  is  probably,  of  all  the  for- 
mularies which  the  book  contains,  the  one  least 
obnoxious  to  such  a  charge.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Eucharist  was  known  to  be  the  critical  point  in 
the  Eeformation's  line  of  defense,  and  it  was 
guarded  with  a  corresponding  jealousy.  That 
the  Prayer  Book  Office  still  retains  this  bulwark 
character  is  sufficiently  evinced  by  the  fact  that 


TEE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PBAYEB.  95 

those  who  seek  to  make  it  do  duty  as  High  Mass 
are  compelled  to  mutilate  and  dislocate  it  before 
it  can  be  forced  to  lend  itself  to  their  questiona- 
ble purpose. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  history  and  of  the  char- 
acteristics of  the  Prayer  Book ;  bear  with  me  a 
little  longer  until  I  shall  have  said  a  few  words 
about  its  possibilities  in  years  to  come. 

I  hold  the  Common  Prayer  to  be  the  common 
property  of  the  whole  English-speaking  race.  It 
was  originally  promulgated  with  the  intention 
of  its  being  that.  By  what  disabling  statute 
or  repealing  clause,  I  should  like  to  ask,  has 
right  of  ownership  been  since  limited  to  any 
narrower  constituency?  There  are,  to  be  sure, 
certain  corporate  bodies  that  hold  the  book  in 
trust,  as  it  were,  for  the  several  nationalities  into 
which  the  Englishry  of  the  sixteenth  century 
has,  under  God's  providence,  wonderfully  devel- 
oped,— there  is  a  standard  edition  according  to 
the  use  of  England,  another  according  to  the 
use  of  Ireland,  and  another  according  to  the 
use  of  the  United  States ;  but  on  the  book's 
title-page,  high  up  above  these  particulars  of 
lesser  moment,  stands  the  generous  and  inclusive 
superscription,  "  The  Book  of  Common  Prayer, 
and  Administration  of  the  Sacraments  and  other 
Rites  and  Ceremonies  of  the  Church."  What 
Church  ?  England's  Church  ?  Ireland's  Church  ? 
No ; — the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  the  Congrega- 


98  THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER. 

tion  of  Faithful  Men,  the  Body  of  all  those  who 
have  been  baptized  into  the  Holy  Name.  Do 
not  imagine  that  I  am  about  to  close  a  cool  sur- 
vey with  a  perfervid  rhapsody.  I  have  no  ex- 
travagant expectations  for  the  future  of  the 
Prayer  Book  in  this  country,  though  in  common 
with  many  others  I  entertain  some,  perhaps  not 
wholly  unreasonable  hopes.  In  the  light  of  the 
post-Keformation  history,  covering  now  almost 
four  centuries,  it  does  not  seem  likely  that  litur- 
gical worship  will  ever  again  become  universal 
throughout  Christendom,  least  of  all  that  it  will 
do  so  in  a  country  like  this.  If  the  Church  to 
which  an  eminent  Presbyterian  divine  once  gave 
the  felicitous  title  of  ''  The  United  Church  of  the 
United  States  "  ever  grows  into  reality,  the  prob- 
ability is  that  we  shall  see  within  its  borders 
public  worship  conducted  with  high  ritual,  with 
low  ritual,  and  with  no  ritual,  by  liturgy  or  by 
directory,  according  to  the  needs,  demands,  and 
aptitudes  of  particular  communities. 

The  Church  of  England  is  the  only  national 
Church  in  Christendom  that  ever  undertook  to 
enforce  absolute  uniformity  in  public  worship, 
and  England's  attempt  has  been  a  conspicuous 
failure.  Ritualists  and  Evangelicals  succeed  in 
making  one  and  the  same  liturgy  speak  in  very 
different  tones ;  while  non-conformity,  standing 
beyond  the  pale  altogether,  contrives  to  say  its 
prayers  without  the  help  of  any  book  at  all,  and 


THE  BOOK  OF  COMMON  PRAYER.  97 

yet  keeps  up,  strange  to  say,  a  fair  show  of  good 
works. 

But  let  that  pass.  What  I  am  seeking  to 
emphasize  in  these  closing  words  is  the  common 
and  undivided  interest  which  all  English-speak- 
ing Christians  already  possess  in  the  ancient 
Common  Prayer  if  they  have  a  mind  to  claim  it. 
There  are  no  copyright  restrictions  hedging  the 
book ;  no  ecclesiastical  treasury  derives  a  royalty 
from  its  sale.  Why  should  not  congregations  of 
whatever  name  that  feel  the  need  of  a  liturgy 
take  it  and  use  it,  or  so  much  of  it  as  they  care 
to  use,  instead  of  setting  committees  at  work 
compiling  formularies  which  after  all  would  have 
to  shine  mostly  by  borrowed  light?  Scruples 
about  the  ordination  service  need  not  be  an 
obstacle ;  for  no  more  than  the  Thirty-nine  Arti- 
cles is  the  Ordinal  a  part  of  the  Prayer  Book. 
The  Prayer  Book  proper  ends  with  the  Psalms  of 
David,  as  a  glance  at  its  table  of  contents  will 
show.  And  these  are  the  words  with  which  it 
ends :  "  Let  everything  that  hath  breath  praise 
the  Lord." 


VI. 


HOW  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHUKCH  IS 
OEGANIZED. 


YL 

HOW  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH    IS    ORGANIZED. 

When  the  little  groups  of  Church  of  England 
men  scattered  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  under- 
took, at  the  close  of  the  war  that  had  severed 
them  from  the  mother-country,  to  gather  up  such 
fragments  of  organization  as  remained,  it  was 
not  so  much  zeal  for  *'  autonomy  "  that  impelled 
them  as  it  was  the  simple  wish  to  keep  alive  the 
old  ideals  of  character  and  worship  to  which  by 
education  they  were  attached.  They  were  not 
in  very  buoyant  spirits  and  had  few  corporate 
hopes.  Autonomy  was  forced  upon  them.  They 
accepted  it  as  one  of  the  by-products  of  the  war. 
The  severance  of  the  political  tie  that  had 
bound  the  colonies  to  the  British  Crown,  in- 
volved, or  was  held  to  involve,  a  like  breakage 
of  the  thread  which  through  the  Bishop  of 
London  had  given  them  their  rather  tenuous 
connection  with  the  English  Church.  Action  of 
some  sort  they  were  driven  to ;  it  was  swim  or 
sink.  Among  the  leaders  of  the  day  were  two 
men,  strikingly  contrasted  in  physique,  in  tem- 
perament and  in  opinions;  William  White  of 
Pennsylvania  and  Samuel  Seabury  of  Connecti- 

101 


102    HOW  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IS  ORGANIZED. 

cut ;  the  one  a  latitudinarian  in  theology  and  a 
republican  in  politics,  the  other  a  sturdy  high- 
churchman,  more  of  the  Caroline  than  of  the 
Georgian  type,  who,  to  the  day  of  his  death, 
made  no  secret  of  his  devotion  to  the  "lost 
cause."  To  these  two  minds  was  mainly  due, 
under  God,  the  shaping  of  so  much  of  the  Eccle- 
siastical policy  of  the  new-born  Commonwealth 
as  concerned  the  Anglican  portion  of  its  people. 
It  was  a  most  suggestive  blending  of  influences 
and,  as  the  event  has  proven,  a  most  healthful. 
Seabury  looked  out  for  hierarchical  rights  and 
sacramental  orthodoxy.  White  saw  to  it  that 
the  mechanism  of  the  Church,  on  its  legislative 
and  disciplinary  side,  should  be  in  reasonable 
harmony  with  the  newly  established  civil  order. 
The  fifth  paragraph  of  the  Preface  to  the  Prayer 
Book  (which  it  was  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the 
nascent  Church  to  revise  and  to  set  forth)  pic- 
tures the  situation  perfectly,  even  if  in  rather 
clumsy  English, — "  When,  in  the  course  of  Di- 
vine Providence,  these  American  States  became 
independent  with  respect  to  civil  government, 
their  ecclesiastical  independence  was  necessarily 
included  ;  and  the  difl^erent  religious  denomina- 
tions of  Christians  in  these  States  were  left  at 
full  and  equal  liberty  to  model  and  organize 
their  respective  Churches  and  forms  of  worship 
and  discipline,  in  such  manner  as  they  might 
judge    most  convenient  for  their    future   pros- 


HOW  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IS  OBQANIZED.     103 

perity;  consistently  with  the  constitution  and 
laws  of  their  country." 

About  the  same  time  with  their  adapted 
Prayer  Book,  the  fathers  of  the  American  Epis- 
copal Church,  set  forth  a  written  Constitution, 
embodying  such  first  principles  as  they  con- 
sidered essential  to  the  right  ordering  of  ecclesi- 
astical life.  Later  still,  a  certain  quasi  sanction, 
the  force  of  which  has  ever  since  been  in  dispute, 
was  given  to  the  Anglican  Articles  of  Eeligion, 
their  number  having  been  first  reduced  from 
XXXIX  to  XXXYIII  and  certain  clauses,  sup- 
posed to  be  inconsistent  with  democratic  condi- 
tions, expunged.  The  Articles,  therefore,  may 
be  dismissed  from  consideration  as  having  little 
to  do  with  autonomy.  The  real  stress  falls  on 
the  Constitution. 

Virtually  this  document,  the  Constitution,  car- 
ries with  it  the  Prayer  Book  as  well,  since  in  its 
eighth  Article  the  Church's  formularies  of  wor- 
ship are  safeguarded  with  the  utmost  care. 
Whoever,  then,  would  intelligently  study  Ameri- 
can ecclesiastical  autonomy  should  take  for  his 
manual  the  Constitution  of  1789,  as  the  same  has 
been,  from  time  to  time,  amended  and  made 
operant,  through  what  Congress  calls  "appro- 
priate legislation,"  in  the  shape  of  canons. 

The  limits  prescribed  for  this  paper  shut  out 
all  historical  data,  save  such  as  are  absolutely 
essential  to  a  right  understanding  of  the  way  in 


104    HOW  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IS  ORGANIZED, 

which  autonomy  works.  I  have  been  asked,  and 
compliance  is  no  hardship,  to  combine,  if  possible, 
a  minimum  of  theory,  with  a  maximum  of  facts. 
It  is  quite  possible ;  and  I  proceed. 

I.  Units  of  organization, — The  units  of  organ- 
ization under  autonomy  are  three  in  number — (a) 
the  parish,  or  individual  cure  ;  (b)  the  diocese,  or 
group  of  parochial  cures,  presided  over  by  a 
bishop,  and  (c)  the  national  church,  made  up 
of  an  aggregation  of  all  the  dioceses  and  mis- 
sionary jurisdictions  included  within  the  geo- 
graphical limits  of  the  United  States. 

The  governing  and  legislative  powers  of  these 
several  ecclesiastical  entities  are  as  follows :  (a)  in 
the  case  of  the  parish,  the  rector,  wardens  and 
vestrymen,  a  body  which  numbers,  in  all,  ten  or 
twelve  persons,  and  meets  as  often  as  it  sees  fit ; 
(b)  in  the  case  of  the  diocese,  the  bishop  and  the 
Diocesan  Convention,  which  last  meets  annually, 
for  a  session  of  two  or  three  days,  and  varies  in 
size  according  to  the  number  of  parishes  repre- 
sented; (c)  in  the  case  of  the  national  church, 
the  General  Convention,  a  body  which  meets  tri- 
ennially,  for  a  session  of  three  weeks,  and  legis- 
lates, within  the  limits  of  the  Constitution,  for 
the  whole  church.  The  General  Convention  is 
made  up  of  two  houses ;  a  House  of  Bishops,  in 
which  every  bishop  has  a  seat,  and  a  vote ;  and  a 
House  of  Clerical  and  Lay  Deputies,  in  which 
every  diocese  is  entitled  to  representation  by  not 


HOW  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IS  OBOANIZED.     105 

more  than  four  clergymen  and  four  laymen. 
Under  this  arrangement,  the  bishops  hold  in 
virtue  of  their  order,  while  the  clerical  and  lay 
deputies  continue  in  office  only  as  they  secure,  or 
fail  to  secure,  reelection  by  the  dioceses  from 
which  they  are  sent.  The  will  of  the  diocese  in 
this  regard  is  expressed  through  its  Convention 
which,  as  the  triennial  interval  draws  towards  its 
close,  determines  who  shall  represent  it  in  the 
larger  synod. 

An  important  factor  in  diocesan  life  is  the 
body  known  as  the  Standing  Committee.  This 
consists  of  six  or  eight  members  and  is  chosen 
annually  by  the  Diocesan  Convention.  In  all  but 
two  of  the  dioceses  (Connecticut  and  Maryland) 
the  Standing  Committee  is  composed  of  clergy- 
men and  laymen  in  equal  numbers.  In  the  two 
dioceses  named,  the  committee  is  wholly  clerical. 
The  Standing  Committee  is  a  council  of  advice  to 
the  bishop ;  it  passes  judgment  on  the  testimon- 
ials of  fitness  presented  by  candidates  for  holy 
orders;  and,  in  the  case  of  elections  of  bishops 
that  take  place  when  the  General  Convention  is 
not  in  session,  or  is  not  presently  to  convene,  it 
is  the  mouthpiece  of  the  diocese  as  respects 
approval  or  disapproval  of  the  sister  dioceses' 
choice.  Without  the  consent  of  the  major  num- 
ber of  the  dioceses  no  bishop  can  be  lawfully 
consecrated.  An  increasing  number  of  church- 
men complain  of  this  last  requirement  as  a  hard- 


106    HOW  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IS  ORGANIZED. 

ship,  and  use  it  as  an  argument  for  a  "  provincial 
system." 

II.  Metes  and  hoii7ids. — In  the  case  of  the 
l^ational  -  Church,  there  is  no  boundary  question 
to  cause  controversy  ;  the  Church's  area  is  con- 
terminous with  that  of  the  Eepublic.  Diocesan 
lines  were  originally  identical  with  State  lines, 
Virginia  constituting  one  Episcopal  jurisdiction, 
Maryland  another,  Pennsylvania  another,  and  so 
on;  but,  as  the  Church  increased  in  numbers, 
this  simple  arrangement  was  outgrown,  and  there 
are  now  in  the  single  State  of  New  York  no 
fewer  than  five  dioceses,  with  the  prospect  of 
more  to  come  in  the  near  future.  The  method  of 
organizing  and  setting  off  new  dioceses  is  pre- 
scribed by  the  Constitution.  The  lines  of  a 
diocese  usually  coincide  with  those  of  some  con- 
geries of  counties,  and  when  once  agreed  upon 
are  as  fixed  and  definite  as  it  is  possible  to  make 
them.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  parish.  Theoretic- 
ally the  parish,  like  the  diocese,  is  a  geographical 
entity ;  really  and  in  fact  it  is  only  a  geographical 
expression.  I  know  of  only  one  large  city  in  the 
Union  that  possesses  carefully  drawn  parish  bounds 
and  lives  up  to  them, — the  city  of  Washington. 
In  other  cities  a  parish  means,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  the  people  who  habitually  frequent  and 
help  to  maintain  a  particular  place  of  worship. 
Sometimes  this  collection  of  people  is  the  purely 
personal  following  of  a  popular  preacher,  some- 


HOW  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IS  ORGANIZED.     107 

times  it  is  held  together  by  the  more  reputable 
bond  of  historical  associations,  as  for  example  in 
the  case  of  Trinity  Church,  New  York;  St. 
Paul's,  Baltimore,  and  Christ  Church,  Phila- 
delphia ;  but  whatever  the  secret  of  the  cohesive 
power  that  binds  the  parishes  into  oneness  it  cer- 
tainly is  something  other  than  the  fact  that  they 
all  of  them  live  within  specified  territorial  limits. 
In  the  rural  districts,  the  theory  is  that  if  there 
be,  in  a  town  or  village,  only  one  Episcopal 
church,  the  whole  area  of  such  town  or  village 
constitutes  the  rector's  parish.  This  theory  is 
effective  as  against  clerical  intrusions,  making  it 
easy  for  a  country  parson  to  inhibit  all  invaders 
of  his  territory ;  but  it  sometimes  gives  occasions 
to  droll  misunderstandings  between  zealous  young 
rectors  and  the  townspeople,  who  are  theoretic- 
ally their  "parishioners."  A  clergyman  of  my 
acquaintance  having  undertaken  to  visit  all  the 
families  resident  in  his  village  on  the  hypothesis 
that  to  him,  as  the  duly  appointed  priest,  they  all 
belonged,  was  discouraged  to  see  confronting 
him,  when  his  knock  was  answered  by  one  of  the 
cottagers,  a  door-mat  with  this  inscription  skil- 
fully inwrought, — "  We  are  Baptists."  No  doubt, 
however,  despite  such  occasional  acerbities,  much 
good  often  comes  of  the  country  clergyman's  fos- 
tering the  notion  that  all  the  people  of  the  town 
or  village  have  such  lot  and  part  in  him  as  the  ten 
tribes  claimed  in  David.     The  theory  cannot,  for 


108    HOW  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IS  ORGANIZED. 

obvious  reasons,  be  as  successfully  worked  in 
America,  as  it  can  be  in  England,  where  it  has  law 
back  of  it,  but  the  mere  attempt  to  work  it  does 
good  by  suggesting  that  the  territorial  parish  is 
the  thing  that  should  be,  even  though  the  con- 
gregational parish  be  the  thing  that  is. 

III.  Qualifications  of  Voters. — In  the  parish, 
those,  as  a  general  rule,  are  allowed  to  vote 
who  either  own  or  hire  pews,  or,  if  the  church 
be  a  "free  and  open"  one,  statedly  contribute 
through  the  offertory,  or  otherwise,  towards 
the  maintenance  of  public  worship.  In  some 
parishes  the  right  to  vote  is  conceded  to  all 
"  adherents,"  in  others  it  is  limited  to  the  bap- 
tized, possibly  in  some  (I  cannot  speak  with 
certainty)  to  communicant  members  of  the 
Church.  Only  in  sporadic  cases  is  "female 
suffrage "  recognized.  For  the  most  part,  the 
right  to  vote  is  only  exercised  annually  when 
the  wardens  and  vestrymen  are  chosen. 
These  officials  constitute  a  sort  of  executive  com- 
mittee who  are  alike  a  council  of  advice  to  the 
rector  and  a  board  of  control  responsible  for  the 
temporalities  of  the  cure.  At  the  annual' meet- 
ing are  also  chosen  (unless  local  usage  remits 
the  matter  to  the  wardens  and  vestrymen)  those 
who  are  to  represent  the  parish  in  the  Diocesan 
Convention.  In  the  case  of  a  vacancy  in  the 
rectorship,  usage  varies  as  to  the  method  of  fill- 
ing it ;  sometimes  the  parish-meeting  "  calls  "  the 


HO  W  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IS  ORGANIZED.     109 

new  minister  and  fixes  his  salary,  sometimes  the 
wardens  and  vestrymen  do  it.  In  the  latter 
event,  care  is  commonly  taken  to  make  sure  that 
the  person  called  is  likely  to  be  acceptable  to  the 
whole  constituency.  In  the  Diocesan  Conven- 
tion the  bishop  presides,  and  the  clergy  and  lay 
representatives  sit  together  constituting  one 
chamber.  Actually,  however,  the  body  is  bi- 
cameral, since  it  is  always  possible  to  call,  at  the 
close  of  a  debate,  for  "  a  vote  by  orders,"  in 
which  case  the  clergy  vote  by  themselves,  and 
the  laity  by  themselves,  while  a  concurrence  of 
both  orders  is  essential  to  an  affirmative  result. 
In  the  General  Convention,  electoral  provisions 
even  more  conservative  protect  things  as  they 
are ;  for  this  legislature  is  actually  tri-cameral, 
each  one  of  the  three  orders  possessing  a  veto 
against  the  other  two.  When  we  add  to  this  the 
further  consideration  that  no  single  General  Con- 
vention can  alter  so  much  as  one  jot  or  one  tittle 
of  either  the  Constitution  or  the  Prayer  Book, 
every  proposition  of  change  being  required  to 
run  the  gauntlet  of  two  successive  Conventions, 
so  as  to  allow  the  proposal  to  seethe  in  the  mind 
of  the  Church  during  a  whole  triennium,  it  will 
be  acknowledged  that  "  autonomy  "  is  not  such 
a  menace  to  conservatism  as  might  appear. 
With  respect  to  eligibility  for  lay-membership  in 
the  House  of  Deputies,  stricter  rules  apply  than 
in  the  case  of  the  parochial  and  diocesan  councils. 


110    HOW  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IS  ORGANIZED. 

No  layman  may  sit  as  the  representative 
of  a  diocese,  unless  he  be  a  communicant  mem- 
ber of  the  Church.  The  House  of  Deputies,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  compares  favorably,  for  intelli- 
gence and  ability,  with  any  senate  whether  civil 
or  ecclesiastical  that  convenes  in  the  United 
States.  It  is  largely  composed  of  professional 
men  of  high  standing,  and  shows  a  judicial  tem- 
per not  easily  disturbed.  To  ^'stampede"  the 
house  would  be  an  arduous  undertaking.  Ob- 
struction, though  sometimes  practiced,  is  held  to 
be  bad  form. 

One  criticism  often  passed  upon  the  legislative 
methods  of  the  American  Episcopal  Church  has 
a  weight  more  apparent  than  real.  I  refer  to 
the  fact  that  in  the  General  Convention  every 
Diocese  has  voting  power  equal  to  that  of  every 
other.  There  is  no  proportional  representation. 
In  the  House  of  Bishops,  the  Bishop  of  IS^o-man's- 
land,  can  balance  by  his  ballot  the  vote  of  the 
Bishop  of  Washington  or  the  Bishop  of  New 
York,  while  in  the  House  of  Deputies,  the  repre- 
sentatives of  three  skeleton  dioceses  can,  by  the 
simple  device  of  agreeing  to  call  for  "  a  vote  by 
dioceses  and  orders,"  block  the  wishes  of  a  vast 
majority  of  the  communicants  of  the  Church. 
It  might  naturally  be  supposed  that  much  harm 
would  flow  from  such  an  adjustment  of  voting 
powers,  but  thus  far  such  has  not  been  the  case. 
In  the  long  run,  the  voices  of  those  best  entitled 


HOW  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IS  OROANIZED.     Ill 

to  be  heard  prevail.  Moreover  if  E'o-man's-land 
happens  to  possess  a  particularly  able  prelate 
why  should  the  fact  he  represents  only  a  few 
sheep  in  the  wilderness  deprive  him  of  his  just 
right  to  exert  influence  ? 

lY.  The  Judiciary. — The  really  weak  point 
in  American  autonomy  may  be  sought  and  will 
be  found  in  its  machinery  of  discipline.  The  in- 
ability of  an  ecclesiastical  court,  in  a  country 
where  Church  and  State  have  been  declared 
separate,  to  compel  the  attendance  of  witnesses, 
is  a  serious  bar  to  the  successful  administration 
of  justice,  and  is  rapidly  forcing  the  conclusion 
that  in  all  cases  where  criminal  intent  is  involved 
it  will  be  wiser  to  accept  the  findings  of  the  civil 
courts  and  to  let  it  rest  at  that.  In  questions  of 
doctrine  and  ceremonial,  the  case  is,  of  course, 
different,  since  with  these  the  civil  courts  have 
nothing  to  do,  and  the  summoning  of  witnesses 
is  more  likely  to  fetch  them.  As  things  are,  the 
canons  of  the  several  dioceses  provide  for  the 
establishment  of  courts  of  first  instance  for  the 
trial  of  ecclesiastical  causes.  A  general  canon  of 
the  whole  Church  prescribe  the  mode  of  trying  a 
bishop.  Another  set  of  jural  difiiculties  arises 
out  of  the  non-existence  of  any  court  of  appeal. 
Under  "  autonomy  "  there  is  nothing  that  cor- 
responds to  the  United  States  Supreme  Court,  no 
tribunal  exists,  that  is  to  say,  competent  and 
empowered  to  determine  which  canons  passed  by 


112    HOW  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IS  ORGANIZED, 

the  General  Convention  are  constitutional  and 
which  are  not.  To  be  sure  public  opinion 
adjudicates  the  matter  in  the  end,  but  suitors 
grow  weary  of  waiting  for  so  dilatory  a  judge. 
Moreover,  it  does  seem  to  be  a  real  and  not  a 
sentimental  grievance,  that  under  autonomy  as 
it  is,  a  clergyman  may  in  one  diocese  be  tried  and 
disciplined  for  some  offense  or  fancied  offense 
against  canon  or  rubric,  for  which  in  another 
diocese,  of  a  different  complexion,  he  would  not 
be  so  much  as  indicted.  Some  hold  that  all  this 
will  be  remedied  when  a  "provincial  system" 
shall  have  been  hammered  out,  other  some  (per- 
haps more  sensibly)  aver  that  the  same  beatitude 
which  applies  to  the  country  without  annals 
awaits  the  Church  which  is  destitute  of  courts. 
Warned  against  theorizing,  I  forbear  to  express 
any  opinion  on  the  point. 

To  sum  up  this  brief  and  sadly  defective  expo- 
sition of  the  practical  workings  of  a  non-estab- 
lished Anglicanism,  I  would  urge  that  while 
there  may  be  much  to  be  said  against  autonomy 
there  is  more  to  be  said  for  it.  Until  the  King- 
dom of  God  shall  come,  we  need  not  look  to  find 
any  scheme  of  ecclesiastical  administration  flaw- 
less. It  is  easy  to  legislate  in  such  a  way  as  to 
avoid  certain  errors  of  our  neighbors,  but  that  is 
small  comfort  if,  in  doing  so,  we  blunder  into 
other  difficulties  wholly  our  own.  In  two  con- 
trasted systems  of  polity  the  weak  points  of  the 


HOW  THE  EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  IS  ORGANIZED.     113 

one  usually  lie  precisely  opposite  the  strong  points 
of  the  other.  Appoint  bishops,  and  Favoritism  ! 
is  the  cry ;  elect  them  and  the  caucus  becomes  a 
menace.  Insist  that  lay  courts  shall  try  spiritual 
causes,  and  you  write  yourself  down  an  Erastian ; 
insist  that  only  spiritual  courts  shall  have  juris- 
diction, and  you  invite  the  taunt.  How  shall  the 
grace  of  Orders  qualify  a  man  to  weigh  evi- 
dence ? 

Under  autonomy  we  worry  along  very  comfort- 
ably in  America,*  agreeing  to  leave  many  points 
open,  and  recognizing  much  neutral  ground. 
The  tripartite  division  so  often  prophesied  as 
sure  to  happen  to  the  Church  of  England  in  the 
event  of  disestablishment  does  not  happen  to  us. 
High,  low  and  broad  we  dwell  together  in  unity, 
comforting  ourselves  with  the  reflection  that  if 
Cephas,  Paul  and  ApoUos  could  do  it,  so  can  we. 

*  This  paper,  under  the  title  "Autonomy  in  the  United 
States,"  originally  appeared  in  "The  Church  and  Reform," 
a  collection  of  Essays  "relating  to  reform  in  the  government 
of  the  Church  of  England."  London,  Bemrose  and  Sons, 
1902. 


VII. 

01^  THE  FIEING-LIlSrE  OF 
CHEISTEJSTDOM. 


YII. 

ON  THE  FIEING-LINE  OF  CHEISTENDOM. 

Half-informed  people  are  under  the  delusion 
that  interest  in  foreign  missions  is  declining. 
They  have  noticed,  perhaps,  that  this  or  that  mis- 
sionary society  is  in  debt,  or  is  finding  it  hard  to 
secure  properly  equipped  workers,  and  they  have 
drawn  the  hasty  conclusion  that  under  the  scourge 
of  ridicule,  or  because  of  an  eclipse  of  faith  oc- 
casioned by  Biblical  criticism,  archaeological  re- 
search, study  of  comparative  religion,  or  what 
not,  the  missionary  cause  is  on  the  very  brink 
of  collapse.  They  were  never  more  mistaken  in 
their  lives.  This  is  not  the  iron,  it  is  the  golden 
age  of  missions.  The  view-point  from  which  we 
study  and  estimate  the  work  of  missions  has  in- 
deed shifted,  but  it  has  shifted  wholly  for  the 
better.  A  larger  conception  of  the  end  and  aim 
of  missionary  effort  than  ever  before  possessed 
the  mind  of  Christendom  is  steadily  gaining 
ground.  It  has  dawned  upon  us  that  the  unifica- 
tion of  mankind  was  the  great  thought  that  lay 
behind  Christ's  "  other  sheep  I  have,"  and  Paul's 
"  we  both  have  access ; "  and  while  we  are  no 
whit  less  eager  for  the  conversion  of  individuals 

117 


118      ON  THE  FIRING-LINE  OF  CHRISTENDOM. 

than  of  old,  we  see  plainly  that  individualism  is 
not  the  whole  of  it,  but  that  God  is  interested 
and  means  us  to  be  interested,  in  peoples  as  well 
as  in  people ;  and  in  replanting  with  better  seed 
the  burned-over  tracts,  quite  as  much  as  in  the 
rescue,  here  and  there,  of  a  brand  from  the  burn- 
ing. Having,  by  exploration,  at  last  discovered 
just  how  large  this  tenement-house  we  call  the 
world  really  is,  and  how  many  families  inhabit 
it,  we  are  waking  up  to  the  importance  of  "  tene- 
ment-house reform,"  and  to  so  much  of  our 
activity  in  that  direction  as  deals  with  the  more 
distant  rooms  and  least  accessible  passage-ways, 
we  give  the  name  of  ^'  Foreign  "  Missions.  The 
adjective  is  a  little  misleading ;  for,  all  the  while, 
it  remains  true  that  the  better-lighted  and  better- 
swept  portions  of  the  building  are  by  no  means 
so  well  swept  or  so  well  lighted  that  any  of  the 
tenants  can  afford  to  boast.  The  whole  popula- 
tion of  the  house  has  common  interests  and  com- 
mon perils.  Diphtheria  on  one  floor  may  pres- 
ently mean  scarlet  fever  on  the  next,  and,  if  the 
healthy  families  would  keep  their  health,  it  will 
be  wise  for  them  not  to  grumble  over  such  bet- 
terment taxes  as  are  levied  for  the  good  of  all 
concerned. 

According  to  the  most  trustworthy  of  attain- 
able statistics,  there  are  in  the  world,  at  the 
present  time,  upwards  of  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
millions  of    "heathen."     This   does  not  include 


ON  THE  FIRING-LINE  OF  CHBISTENDOM.       119 

Hebrews  and  Moslems,  for  Hebrews  and  Moslems 
worship  the  same  God  that  we  do, — namely,  the 
God  of  Abraham, — though  with  widely  different 
notions  as  to  his  nature,  his  purposes,  and  the 
true  way  of  serving  Him.  By  the  "  heathen," 
strictly  so  named,  we  mean  idolaters  and  panthe- 
ists. Among  the  seven  hundred  and  fifty  millions 
of  these,  there  are  laboring  to-day  about  fifty 
thousand  Christian  missionaries — men  and 
women.  But  what  are  they  among  so  many  ? 
Yery  few,  it  must  be  confessed — very  few,  in- 
deed ;  scarcely  as  many  as  go  to  make  the  stand- 
ing army  of  a  third-rate  power.  The  question 
is,  Who  is  using  them  ?  Who  has  them  in  his 
hand  ?  Whose  purpose  are  they  helping  to  ful- 
fil ?  If  God  is  on  their  side,  they  are  a  majority, 
however  slender  their  ranks  may  look  to  com- 
fortable critics  sitting  at  home  in  Bank-of-Eng- 
land  chairs  and  viewing  them  afar  off.  The 
mistake  most  people  make  with  respect  to  the 
whole  matter  of  foreign  missions  is  that  of 
scanning  the  thing  through  a  monocle  instead  of 
with  a  field-glass.  They  take  too  narrow  views 
altogether,  and  content  themselves  with  looking 
a  few  yards  ahead,  when  they  ought  to  be  sweep- 
ing the  horizon.  The  Christianizing  of  the 
world  is  only  another  name  for  the  civilizing  of 
the  world,  and  the  victory  of  the  Cross  is  only 
another  name  for  the  reconciliation  of  mankind. 
My  thesis  is  this — that  God  is  using  the  Chris- 


120      ON  THE  FIBING-LINE  OF  CHRISTENDOM, 

tian  nations  very  much  as,  in  the  former  time, 
He  used  the  Jewish  people,  with  an  ulterior  view 
to  the  well-being  of  the  entire  race ;  and  that  the 
evidences  of  the  Divine  purpose  are  to  be  sought, 
not  only  in  Holy  Scripture,  though  they  are 
abundant  there,  but  also  in  post-Christian  and 
contemporary  history.  When  we  go  to  the  Bible 
to  find  out  the  real  missionary  motive  and  the 
real  missionary  purpose,  we  discover  that  what 
lies  back  of  the  whole  thing  is  a  grand  plan  of 
God  for  knitting  all  kindreds  and  families  and 
tongues  into  one  rightly  adjusted  and  well-com- 
pacted whole,  the  members  of  which  shall  cease 
to  bite  and  devour  one  another,  as  did  those 
"  dragons  of  the  prime  "  which  held  possession  of 
this  planet  before  man  came  here,  and  whose  in- 
stincts and  appetites  man  has  in  some  measure 
inherited,  but,  instead  of  this,  shall  labor  intelli- 
gently and  conscientiously  for  one  another's 
good.  Beneath  the  surface  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment this  splendid  anticipation  runs  like  a 
smouldering  fire,  revealing  its  presence  only  here 
and  there,  and  now  and  then,  in  psalm  or 
prophecy ;  but  in  the  New  Testament,  and  espe- 
cially in  the  writings  of  St.  Paul,  the  prince  of 
missionaries,  it  blazes  forth  with  an  energy  noth- 
ing can  repress  and  a  brilliancy  nothing  can 
quench.  Of  all  the  strange  blunders  ever  made 
by  theologians,  perhaps  the  strangest  has  been 
that  of  interpreting  St.  Paul  as  an  exclusionist — 


ON  THE  FTBINO-LINE  OF  CHRISTENDOM.      121 

as  one  who  would  have  few  to  be  saved,  and 
come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  truth.  On  the 
contrary,  it  was  just  because  his  sympathies  went 
out  so  widely  as  they  did ;  just  because  he  was 
eager  to  break  down  partition  walls,  and  to 
throw  the  door  of  God's  temple  as  wide  open  as 
he  could, — it  was  just  for  this  that  he  suffered 
persecution.  The  men  who  hounded  Paul  to  his 
death  belonged  to  the  very  same  class  that  had 
crucified  his  Master.  It  was  not  the  officials  of 
the  Koman  Empire  who  were  his  bitterest  adver- 
saries ;  it  was  his  own  countrymen.  They  availed 
themselves,  to  be  sure,  of  the  forms  of  the  Eo- 
man  law,  and  therefore,  every  now  and  then,  in 
the  Acts  and  the  Epistles,  we  catch  glimpses  of 
the  lictors  and  the  fasces ;  but  Paul's  real 
enemies,  his  determined  and  desperate  antago- 
nists, were  his  own  people.  What  business  had  he, 
they  asked,  to  interest  himself  in  the  heathen, — 
aliens,  outsiders,  foreigners,  barbarians,  heretics, 
dissenters  ?  And  so  they  persecuted  him,  liter- 
ally, from  city  to  city,  plotted  his  capture, 
planned  his  death.  And  yet  his  grand  thought, 
inspired  of  God,  survived  all  their  machinations, 
and  never  was  more  active  as  a  moving  force  in 
human  society  than  it  is  to-day.  For  only  look 
and  see  in  what  a  wonderful  manner  the  Provi- 
dence of  God  is  opening  doors  hitherto  tight- 
shut,  and  making  paths  where,  up  till  now,  the 
foot  of  man  has  never  trod !     Look  at  Africa, 


122       ON  THE  FIRING-LINE  OF  CHRISTENDOM. 

entered  at  a  score  of  points  by  the  pioneers,  the 
sappers  and  miners,  of  Christendom !  Look  at 
China,  reluctantly  taking  down  the  bolts  and 
bars  that  for  thousands  of  years  have  held  her 
heavy  doors  fast-shut  in  the  face  of  the  out- 
sider !  Ah,  but,  you  say,  all  this  is  simply  the 
greed  and  craft  of  the  merchantmen.  It  is 
covetousness,  not  faith,  that  lies  back  of  this  tre- 
mendous pressure  which  is  forcing  the  gates  of 
those  walled  coasts,  opening  those  sealed  conti- 
nents. 

True  and  not  true — true  superficially,  not  true 
profoundly  !  It  is  quite  true  that,  at  present,  the 
emperors  and  prime  ministers  and  foreign  sec- 
retaries are  all  for  conquest  and  for  trade — for 
conquest  for  the  sake  of  trade.  When  a  magnifi- 
cent harbor  on  the  China  coast  is  seized  and 
occupied  because  forsooth  a  few  missionaries 
owning  civil  allegiance  to  the  power  making  the 
seizure  have  been  maltreated,  nobody  is  hood- 
winked. We  all  know  what  it  means ;  we  all  see 
that  the  Christian  Church  is  being  used  as  a  cat's- 
paw  for  a  purpose,  and  that  purpose  one  of  terri- 
torial aggrandizement  and  commerical  profit. 
In  fact,  this  whole  business  of  the  protection 
of  missionaries  by  gunboats  and  Gatlings  is 
both  ludicrous  and  mortifying.  Not  by  such 
methods  or  with  such  backing  did  the  first  apos- 
tles of  the  faith  essay  the  conversion  of  the 
world.     They  took  their  lives  in  their  hands,  and 


ON  THE  FIBINQ-LINE  OF  CHRISTENDOM.      123 

were  content  that  so  it  should  be.     But  while  the 
Church  disowns  these  naval  and  military  guaran- 
tees of  her  safety,  and  while  she  joins  with  the 
world  in  quietly  smiling  at  the  somewhat  noisy 
tone  of  her  would-be  defenders  among  the  kings  of 
the  earth,  she  is  not  blind  to  the  wonderful  op- 
portunities which  commerce  and  conquest  are 
putting   within  her  reach.     "  That  is   not  first 
which  is  spiritual,  but  that  which  is  natural "  (or, 
more  literally,  animal),  "and   afterwards  that 
which  is    spiritual."      Grant  that  the  motives 
which  are  impelling  the  western  nations  to  the 
partition  of  Africa  and  of  China  are  so  question- 
able that  we  must  needs,  if  we  are  candid,  assign 
them  to  the  low  level  of  the  natural  or  the  ani- 
mal,—nevertheless,  afterwards  cometh  the  spiri- 
tual.    Trade  follows  the  flag ;  yes,  but  the  human 
heart   follows   the   cross.     :^ot   seldom,  perhaps 
oftenest,   the  cross  has   been  earlier  upon  the 
ground  than  the  flag.     But  be  that  as  it  may,  it 
is  a  shame  and  disgrace  to  Christendom  if  any- 
where it  plants  the  flag  and  is  careless  whether 
the  cross  be  planted  by  its  side  or  not.     Surely 
a    most    Christian    poet    was    the    man    who 
sang: 

"  Fly,  happy,  happy  sails  and  bear  the  Press  ; 
Fly,  happy  with  the  mission  of  the  Cross, 
Knit  land  to  land  and  blowing  havenward, 
With  silks  and  fruits  and  spices  clear  of  toll, 
Enrich  the  markets  of  the  Golden  Year." 


124      ON  THE  FIRING-LINE  OF  CHRISTENDOM. 

So  interpreted,  the  Golden  Year  becomes  only 
another  name  for  "  the  acceptable  year  of  the 
Lord."  It  may  be  said,  in  reply  to  my  plea  for 
missions  as  a  civilizing  agency,  that  in  the  case  of 
Japan  we  see  an  instance  of  a  nation  becoming 
civilized  before  it  has  been  Christianized.  The 
more  intelligent  among  the  Japanese  have,  we 
are  told,  thrown  aside  their  superstitions,  given 
up  their  old  mythology,  but  without,  thus  far, 
putting  any  religion  whatever  in  the  place  of 
what  has  been  discarded.  They  have  ceased  to  be 
heathen  in  their  beliefs,  without  becoming  Chris- 
tian. Yes,  but  we  must  give  Japan  time.  ISTo 
nation  can  live  and  flourish,  for  more  than  a  gen- 
eration or  two,  without  a  religion.  Japan  will 
discover  this.  Just  now  the  leading  minds  of 
that  country  are  engrossed  with  the  task  of 
mastering  and  assimilating  the  immense  amount 
of  new  knowledge  which  has  been  put  within 
their  reach  through  intercourse  with  the  western 
peoples — such  knowledge,  I  mean,  as  can  be 
gathered  at  universities,  in  observatories,  and 
schools  of  applied  science.  For  the  present, 
Japan  thinks,  just  as  college-bred  India  thinks, 
that  this  is  enough.  But  give  Japan  time. 
It  is  not  so  very  long  ago  since  we  our- 
selves were  finding  it  difficult  not  to  be  a  little 
owerawed,  just  a  bit  intimidated,  by  the  threat 
that  modern  discovery  would  presently  make 
Christian    believing    an  impossibility.      In   the 


ON  THE  FIRING-LINE  OF  CHRISTENDOM.      125 

sixties  and  the  seventies  the  assaults  upon  the 
stronghold  of  the  faith  were  frequent  and  deter- 
mined. Our  religion  was  put  upon  the  defensive, 
and,  in  cultivated  society,  it  required  some 
courage  to  stand  squarely  up  to  what  fealty  to 
Chirst  demanded.  Of  late  there  has  been  a 
marked  change.  It  has  come  to  be  seen  that 
mere  discovery  in  the  range  of  things  natural 
brings  no  real  message  of  comfort  to  the  failing 
heart  of  man — rather  the  reverse.  The  millen- 
nium  of  universal  happiness,  rapturously  prophe- 
sied by  the  earlier  seers  of  the  new  order,  has 
been  indefinitely  postponed.  Increase  of  knowl- 
edge has,  if  anything — certainly  in  the  case  of 
the  best  minds  and  hearts — brought  increase  of 
sorrow,  rather  than  increase  of  joy ;  and  men 
have  been  reluctantly  driven  back  to  the  conclu- 
sion that,  if  satisfaction  for  our  deepest  needs 
is  not  to  be  found  in  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ, 
it  is  to  be  found  nowhere.  But  Japan  has  not 
got  so  far  as  this.  It  has  progressed  far  enough 
to  discern  the  folly  of  the  old  idolatries,  and  far 
enough  to  be  able  to  appreciate  the  value  of  the 
new  industrial  methods  and  scientific  processes, 
but  not  far  enough,  quite  yet,  to  have  learned 
the  utter  emptiness,  the  dreary  futility,  of 
agnosticism.  By  and  by,  and  perhaps  before 
very  long  (for  they  are  a  quick  people),  the 
Japanese  will  learn,  what  we  have  been  learning 
during  the  last  twenty  years,  that  material  prog- 


126      ON  THE  FIBING-LINE  OF  CHRISTENDOM, 

ress,  unaccompanied  by  growth  in  spiritual  in- 
sight, is  a  questionable  blessing,  and  that  unless 
it  can  find  some  ground  for  doing  justly  and 
loving  mercy  better  and  firmer  than  a  mere 
acquaintance  with  the  laws  of  nature  can  show, 
a  nation,  no  matter  how  well  equipped  with  iron- 
clads and  locomotives,  is  in  a  bad  way.  Japan 
will  find  this  out,  as  it  has  already  found  out  the 
other  and  less  important  points  ;  and,  when  that 
happens,  it  will  be  made  plain  to  everybody  that 
that  empire  is  no  exception  to  the  rule  that  civili- 
zation is  dependent  upon  Chris tianization.  Ke- 
member,  it  was  a  Christian  nation  that  first  opened 
Japan.  From  that  opening  dates  the  beginning  of 
the  empire's  forward  movement ;  so  that,  even  in 
this  apparently  exceptional  case,  we  discern  the 
indirect  influence  of  Christian  thought,  the  un- 
noticed potency  of  the  cross.  ^ 

'  In  the  preface  to  a  suggestive  little  book  entitled  ' '  Bushido: 
The  Soul  of  Japan, ' '  the  author,  Dr.  Inazo  Nitobe,  acknowl- 
edges that  he  can  find,  as  a  Japanese,  no  better  basis  for 
morals  than  that  supplied  by  chivalry,  as  this  is  known  and 
practiced  in  the  Mikado's  Empire.     He  writes  : 

' '  About  ten  years  ago,  while  spending  a  few  days  under  the 
hospitable  roof  of  the  distinguished  Belgian  jurist,  the  lamented 
M.  de  Laveleye,  our  conversation  turned  during  one  of  our 
rambles,  to  the  subject  of  religion.  '  Do  you  mean  to  say,' 
asked  the  venerable  professor,  '  that  you  have  no  religious  in- 
struction in  your  schools  ?  '  On  my  replying  in  the  negative  he 
suddenly  halted  in  astonishment,  and  in  a  voice  which  I  shall 
not  easily  forget,  he  repeated,  '  No  religion  !  How  do  you  im- 
part moral  education  ?  '  The  question  stunned  me  at  the  time. 
I  could  give  no  ready  answer,  for  the  moral  precepts  I  learned 
in  my  childhood  days,  were  not  given  in  schools  ;  and  not  until 
I  began  to  analyze  the  different  elements  that  formed  my  moral 


ON  THE  FIRING-LINE  OF  CEBISTENDOM.      127 

To  sum  up,  the  world  is  drawing  itself,  or 
rather  is  being  drawn,  by  the  strong  grasp  of 
God's  compelling  purpose,  into  unity ;  and  al- 
though the  nations  cannot,  yet,  so  much  as  under- 
stand one  another's  speech,  they  are  beginning  to 
realize  kinship;  back  of  the  many  languages 
they  recognize  the  one  blood.  It  is  the  glory  of 
foreign  missions,  so-called,  to  be  contributory  to 
this  process  by  which  God  is  reconciling  his 
world,  not  only  to  Himself,  but  to  itself.  For- 
eign missions  represent  the  peaceable  side  of  the 
movement.  They  aim  at  securing  "  the  heritage 
of  the  heathen,"  not  by  methods  of  conquest  and 
spoliation,  but  by  persuasion,  conversion,  trans- 
formation. While  merchants  and  traders  are 
carrying  their  doctrines  of  profit  and  loss,  sup- 
ply and  demand,  and  while  viceroys  and  com- 
manders are  carrying  their  schemes  for  political 
and  territorial  exploration,  the  missionaries  are 
carrying  the  far  more  important,  even  if  less 
keenly  appreciated,  principles  of  peace  and  good- 
will. And  it  is  high  time.  Watchful  observers, 
like  Mahan,  for  instance,  have  noted  the  point 


notions,  did  I  find  that  it  was  Bushido  that  breathed  them  into 
my  nostrils. 

' '  The  direct  inception  of  this  little  book  is  due  to  the  frequent 
queries  put  by  my  wife  as  to  the  reasons  why  such  ideas  and 
customs  prevail  in  Japan. 

"  In  my  attempts  to  give  satisfactory  replies  to  M.  de  Laveleye 
and  to  my  wife,  I  found  that  without  understanding  Feudalism 
and  Bushido,  the  moral  ideas  of  the  present  Japan  are  a  sealed 
volume. ' ' 


128      ON  THE  FIRING-LINE  OF  CEBISTENDOM. 

that  the  trusteeship  of  the  high  explosives 
which  at  present  rests  in  the  hands  of  Christen- 
dom, is  gradually  ceasing  to  be  our  monopoly. 
Kecent  events  in  the  far  East,  and  notably  the 
war  between  China  and  Japan,  have  caused  a 
rude  awakening  in  the  minds  of  Western  states- 
men. It  is  now  perceived  that  there  is  nothing 
to  prevent  heathendom  from  coming  into  posses- 
sion of  those  treasures  of  physical  force  which  it 
was  given  to  Christendom  to  discover.  It  fol- 
lows that  the  knowledge  of  the  power  of  God's 
works,  so  significantly  given  to  us  in  advance  of 
others,  will  avail  us  nothing  unless  we  use  our 
advantage  righteously.  Heathendom  outnum- 
bers Christendom  by  many  millions.  Suppose 
the  non-Christian  peoples  acquire  the  armament 
of  the  Christian  peoples  without  acquiring  those 
principles  for  which  the  despised  missionaries 
stand,  what  then  ?  Would  a  subversion  of  our 
present-day  civilization  be,  in  that  event,  such  a 
very  unlikely  thing  ?  Might  there  not  come 
upon  the  vineyards  and  olive-yards  of  our  self- 
complacent  and  somewhat  over-secure  modern 
life  an  overthrow  similar  to  that  which  buried 
Europe  under  a  lava-bed  of  barbarism  for  cen- 
turies ?  You  say  that  this  is  a  selfish  appeal  to 
motives  of  self-preservation,  and  that  the  con- 
tingency of  which  I  have  been  speaking  is  too 
remote  to  deserve  a  moment's  consideration. 
Yery  true ;  but  it  all  goes  to  help  my  purpose. 


ON  THE  FIRING-LINE  OF  CHRISTENDOM.      129 

which  is  to  bring  out  into  plain  sight  those 
grander  and  more  august  aspects  of  foreign  mis- 
sions which  are  so  liable  to  be  neglected  and  for- 
gotten, while  people  are  puttering  over  insignifi- 
cant questions  of  receipts  and  expenditures, 
which  really  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  main 
point.  Fire  the  heart  of  the  Church  with  a  mag- 
nificent conception  of  what  the  conversion  of  the 
world  to  Christ  really  means,  and  the  Church 
will  give  to  foreign  missions,  as  it  has  never 
given  before. 


'''mmmmiJhnlfV"'  Seminary  Libraries 


1    1012  01208  7955 


Date  Due 

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m^m 

fisgmm 

m. 

1 

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PRINTED 

IN  U.  S.  A. 

